Lightning causes major outages, knocks out power at UNC Rex, starts fire at Robeson County church
Crews were working Tuesday to restore power outages and clear roads after a night of severe storms led to downed trees, delayed flights and even a fire.
At 6 p.m. Tuesday, approximately 23,344 customers were still without power in North Carolina, including 237 in Wake County. During an overnight peak, there were more than 80,000 power outages in Wake County and more than 280,000 outages throughout the entire state. Many people spent the entire night in the dark.
Jeff Brooks, a spokesperson for Duke Energy, said the storm moved quickly, knocking out power to thousands of people. Neuse River Middle School in Knightdale, which is a year-round school, dismissed early at 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday due to a power outage.
"Strong lightning and severe storms ... and all of that came together to create almost like a mini tropical storm or a hurricane for a short span there," Brooks said. "We saw a significant amount of straight-line winds that brought down a lot of trees on our system."
Multiple trees fell Tuesday across the Triangle, including on Cary Towne Boulevard near the Fenton shopping center and Interstate 40. At the Brighthurst Condos near Village District in Raleigh, a tree fell into a pool, and the tree tore siding off the side of an apartment.
Trees also fell in Raleigh's Historic Oakwood Cemetery and in multiple Raleigh neighborhoods.
"What we’re seeing around the area [Tuesday] is downed lines, broken poles, and really hundreds of outage locations," Brooks said.
Power surge at UNC Rex, no patients harmed
UNC Health Rex experienced a power surge Monday night as the result of an area lightning strike. The power surge caused hospital circuit breakers to trip, cutting power to more than 10 departments in the hospital, including the labor and delivery unit, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), emergency department and some areas of radiology.
A spokesperson said the power outage did not affect the entire hospital, but a number of systems went offline temporarily. Power was restored, and no patients were adversely affected by the temporary outages.
"Because the power loss occurred in the evening, no procedures were delayed or postponed," said Phil Bridges with UNC Health. "The cath lab and operating room continued procedures that were already in progress. No admitted patients were transferred out of Rex. The hospital was on diversion temporarily, during which time no new patients were accepted."
Duke Energy working to restore power
Strong winds Monday night left thousands of individual locations across the state without power, and Brooks said they all have to be repaired.
"Today we’re really grinding through those outages that are smaller, that are in neighborhoods, and that is going to take time," he said.
Power outages in Wake County were down to under 6,000 Tuesday afternoon, but Brooks said there is a lot of work remaining.
"When you look at the outages, there’s still 500+ locations that have to be repaired, so there's still a lot of work going on today," Brooks said. "We were seeing more than 75,000 customers at one point that were out. We’re working through those outages, and we’ve restored across the Carolinas more than 350,000 customers today."
New technology will reduce outages
Brooks said Duke Energy is making many improvements to the intelligence of the power grid, which will enable a capability called self-healing technology.
"That technology can automatically detect a power outage when it happens, [such as] when a tree falls on a line, and then reroute power to other available lines to get service restored faster," Brooks said. "This is a new technology that we’re really deploying en masse around the Triangle on our main power lines, and that’s going to make a huge difference."
Self-healing technology doesn't repair the outage as its name suggests.
"The outage still has to have a crew go out and do the repair, but it can reduce the number of customers that are impacted by that outage by as much as 75%," Brooks explained.
In some cases, it can restore power in less than a minute.
"I would think of it a lot like the GPS in your car that says, 'hey there’s an accident ahead, take a different road and I can get you back on your way,'" Brooks said. "The same thing is being done here with the grid and that technology’s only going to get better in the years ahead."
Tree falls on Raleigh home during storms
Last year, the Brooks family cut down several trees around their Campbell Road home, leaving one behind.
On Monday night, the tree came down on the home, slicing it in half while they were inside.
Leisa Brooks and her husband were in the living room, watching their TV.
"It was loud," Brooks said. "It sounded like a train, a strange sound and we heard a crash and bam."
Brooks was amazed when she saw a tree sliced through the house in the hallway.
"I walked over and [was] standing there dumbfounded like it was a dream," Brooks said.
Brooks' parents lived on the property. Her dad lived there for 89 years.
The structure of the house was built in 1972, Brooks said.
"I feel like the secureness is gone," Brooks said. "I don't have my home, [the] place I dearly loved anymore.
The tree crashed into the home's study, a room that holds Brooks' dad's memorabilia, including a fiddle. He died in 2022.
"The memories we have in this house are amazing," Brooks said. "It's so hard. I can't explain it."
Brooks said she was thankful to be alive. She said a company will come to remove the tree to assess the damage to see if the house can be rebuilt.
Brooks is staying with other family for the time being.
Lightning strike starts fire at Baptist church
A lightning strike sparked fire at Proctorville Baptist Church in Robeson County.
The preacher and his son, Daniel Jackson, live next door.
Jackson shared video on Facebook and said they they heard the lightning hit the church around 9 p.m. before the fire started.
Drivers dodge debris on the roadways
WRAL News viewers submitted pictures as storms passed through central North Carolina.
In Garner on Beichler Road, the top of a tree completely broke off and was sitting on the roof of a home. Sky 5 video showed a hole in the roof of the house.
During a 15-minute period on Monday night, there were 485 lightning strikes, triggering power outages across the state. Several trees also fell on homes and across roadways, creating hazardous conditions for drivers and even injuring at least one couple outside their home near Raleigh's Village District.
People sent WRAL News photos of downed trees, play structures blown across backyards and even a rare pink rainbow, which appeared after the storm.
Conditions were tricky for the Tuesday morning commute. A large fallen tree was across Ridge Road near Lewis Farm Road in Raleigh.
Some drivers told WRAL News they had to 'dodge fallen limbs' as they drove into work. In Raleigh, a tree fell near Raleigh's Village District on Brighthurst Drive.
"We were looking at the treetops, and my wife said that, 'I think that tree is about to come down,'" said Dave Parker.
Parker and his wife were not injured.
"We were lucky that nothing came into our patio, but our patio is completely walled in with limbs and trees right now," Parker said.
Parker said he's lucky no glass was broken at his home. He said pool furniture was broken near his condo.
In Cary, a woman was trapped after the tree fell into a house on Palmer Place. A town of Cary spokesperson said no one was injured.
Garner police and the North Carolina State Highway Patrol responded to a tree that fell on a car on Grovemont Road. No one was injured, according to police. The people were out of the car when the tree fell on it, police said.
In Durham, a car went down an embankment on N.C. Highway 55 and I-40. It's unclear the cause of the crash or how many people were involved. The road reopened around 11 p.m. Monday.
In Apex, police said there were sporadic traffic light outages, downed trees and ponding water. Drivers were urged to use caution when going through intersections.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation said more than a dozen roads were blocked by downed trees or power lines in the Rocky Mount area.
Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport each had dozens of flights canceled on Monday night.
