RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — With several severe thunderstorm alerts, damaging wind gusts, hail and lightning, counties across central North Carolina saw a number of downed trees, damage and outages.
Earlier Thursday morning, there were over 1,000 Duke Energy customers without power, according to the electric company's website.
Widespread reports of loss of power came in from counties as far south as Harnett and Wayne counties, as far north as Vance County, and all throughout Franklin and Durham counties.
By the time of the morning commute, the number of outages dwindled down to about 700.
According to our CBS 17 Storm Team, rain and possible severe weather will continue in central NC, with a storm system arriving sometime this afternoon.
Emergency management in Wayne County announced Wednesday afternoon that several reports have been received regarding reports of trees down across the county. Wayne County, along with Wake and other central NC counties, were under a severe thunderstorm warning early afternoon. Pea-sized hail was also reported near Goldsboro.
The CBS 17 Storm Team also saw several trees down near the south of Rolesville in eastern Wake County.
Several reports of trees and wires down were also reported in Youngsville in Franklin County after severe storms. At least one house on Westbrook Lane — which is for sale and was unoccupied at the time — was hit by lightning in that area, fire officials confirmed.
"Thankfully the neighbors here saw the smoke and they called. Had they had not seen it and called, possibly there would have been a lot more damage to this structure," said Youngsville Fire Chief Brian Christmas.
The Duke Energy Outage map also shows reports of several outages across the Triangle. Knightdale is reporting nearly 5,000 customers without power and about 1,000 customers without power in southern Wake County near Raleigh.
To check for outage updates, visit the Duke Energy website here.
