Moore County Hit Hard By Storm; Many Residents Still Without Power

Lots of snow.

Lots of wind.

Lots of trees down.

Three days after the storm, thousands of Moore County residents are still without power. Patrick Sweeney of CP&L says as of 8 a.m. Thursday, about 19,000 customers in the Southern Pines, Sandhills area are without power. Utility workers there say it may take until Friday to have everyone back on line.

Many customers, like Alan Quesnell, have had their power restored.

"Many residents of Southern Pines have power back by 7:00 p.m. [Wednesday]," he says. "After ours came on, I walked through several nearby neighborhoods and saw many lights. There were still some streets without power, or where one side of the street had power and the other didn't. I could hear and see line crews working on many streets; quite a welcome change from yesterday and the day before."

The Cooper family has been without power since Monday night. Marcie Cooper has had a tough time keeping her three young children warm, especially 4-month-old Clay. At night, family members have been cuddling up in this bed, doing their best to fight boredom and the frigid cold.

"Last night we just sat in the bed and all we could do was pass the radio around and that's all," said young Casey Cooper.

This is what's causing all the problems -- wet, heavy snow straining and downing power lines throughout Moore County.

"It's terrible because we don't have any source of heat," said one Moore County resident. "We pretty much stay under the covers,

Most secondary roads are still covered with snow; even the ambulances can't get through them.

"We've had to enlist help from Fort Bragg, bringing in some humvee vehicles just to be able to get around," said Moore County Manager David McNeill. "We had a couple of our ambulances get stuck the first night and were just taken out of service."

The Coopers might not get their power back until Thursday, but they can't wait that long. They're packing up and getting out.

"It's kind of scary," said Marcie Cooper. "We've heard we may not get power until tomorrow night (Thursday night), and it's supposed to get so cold tonight. So my dad came to rescue us and we're going to Durham"