Thousands lose power in Charlotte after severe storms with potential 60 mph winds
Nearly 6,000 Duke Energy customers in south Charlotte lost power during a severe storm Saturday with the potential for 50-60 mph winds and quarter-size hail, according to the National Weather Service.
Some homes and businesses could be without electricity until 12:15 a.m. Sunday, according to Duke Energy.
Heavy rains prompted a flash-flood warning for Charlotte and Pineville until 6 p.m.
Images posted on Twitter during the storm showed flooding on roads that included Independence Boulevard near the Hawthorne Lane bridge and Queens Road at Edgehill Road South. A swollen McMullen Creek threatened to flood Addison Drive where five cars were parked.
“Move immediately to higher ground!” NWS meteorologists in the Greer, South Carolina, office said on Twitter when issuing the warning. “Avoid walking or driving through flood waters!”
About 4,000 of the outages were reported from Queens Road East in Myers Park southeast along Providence Road to past Fairview Road, according to the Duke Energy map.
Nearly 600 other homes and businesses were in Chantilly and other neighborhoods near Plaza Midwood, the map showed.
A Chantilly resident sent The Charlotte Observer a video clip of a heavy, unrelenting rain dump outside her home.
At 6:15 p.m., outages had fallen to 4,400 in Mecklenburg County, the outage map showed.
At least 2 inches of rain fell across parts of Charlotte, according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg rain gauge map.
Totals included 2.34 inches at Freedom Park; 2.33 inches at Fire Station 16, on Park South Drive near SouthPark; 2.28 inches at Fire Station 15, on Frontenac Road near Eastway Drive and Shamrock Drive; 2.23 inches on Sardis Road at McAlpine Creek; 2.10 inches at Alexander Graham Middle School, in Myers Park; and 1.96 inches at Chantilly Elementary School, near Bojangles Coliseum.
Correspondent Steve Lyttle contributed.
