A powerful line of
thunderstorms triggered tornado warnings and widespread reports of damage
across the Triangle Wednesday. In all, there were more than 20 tornado warnings
for the Triangle area. Duke Progress Energy reported many power outages. On
Trevor Circle and Chauncer in Durham, power was restored about 9 p.m. Several
trees went down in this neighborhood, mostly doing minimal harm, but one fell
on Jerry Dodd's car on Trevor Circle. Dodd's wife had just pulled up to her
home and hadn't been inside more than 10 minutes before the tree in the front
yeard crashed right through the top of her car. "Fortunately she was
okay," Dodd said. "She was inside with the dogs and the wind became
pretty ferocious so she climbed into the closet under the stairs with the dogs
and she heard the actual crash."
As of 7 p.m., there
were fewer than 120,000 power outages with most outages reported in Forsyth,
Gaston, Guilford, Mecklenburg and Wake counties. Wednesday night. the NC
Department of Transportation warned that although the storms had moved through,
strong winds persisted and downed power lines remained a danger, particularly
in the Triad region of the state, but also in Orange, Caswell and Alamance
counties. In Granville County, a home was destroyed in the Huntsboro community
near the Henderson-Oxford airport. Several more homes were damaged.
