Tuesday's storms move away but lots of damage seen, reported

Left behind are many areas that lost power, trees that were brought down by strong winds and other damage. WRAL meteorologists Aimee Wilmoth and Kat Campbell report power lines down in Clayton, trees down in Franklin, Halifax and Warren counties and wind damage in many locations.

Over in Nash County, trees came down on at least two homes. In fact, officials said they received seven calls in nine minutes for assistance from the storms and the damage it caused.

"Clouds were all dark and all of the sudden it just came pouring down and the wind was blowing everything sideways," said Betsy Owens, who lives in Nashville and had damage to her home. "I have big old trees in my yard so my heart was kind of beating fast too."

Nashville fire chief Chris Joyner said lightning likely struck a tree, causing it to crash on the roof of a home. They were finishing another call and drove by a home and immediately started to help the homeowner clean up.

"We started right then, customer service," Joyner said. "We went in there and we started overhauling, started getting the mops out trying to mop up the rain, try and get the water off the floor. She has beautiful hardwood floors in there and we didn't want to ruin them so we started doing that we put the fan in there to try and dry it up."

The woman who lives at the home was there when the storms rolled through. She says while she's not hurt it was a scary situation and, as you can imagine, it was very loud."

In Wake Forest, a family was cleaning up after lightning struck their home and a tree next to it. They were home when it happened and ran outside with their young children to get away from the smoldering roof.

Ashley Ash said she was upstairs with her 3-year-old son. Her husband, Derek Ash, was in the kitchen with their 6-month-old.

"Boom it hit. You could smell the lightning, you could feel it, the lights over our island were shaking back and forth," Derek Ash said.

"I ran and threw them in the car right away and drove them across the street and called the fire department," Ashley Ash said.

Luckily, no one was injured.

Firefighters said it was two hits, one to the tree and the other into the house. There's a good-sized hole under a tarp on their roof Tuesday night.

The family said they moved here from Iowa a year ago to get away from harsh winters only to be faced with this.

"Yes. Exactly. We've had some bad luck since we moved. But we still love it here," Ashley Ash said.

We'll be at a Level 1 for severe weather on Wednesday. It'll also stay very hot until those showers happen.

WRAL Weather