More than 55,000 customers without power in Wake County, 1 out of 10
Hurricane Ian on Friday brought down trees, flooded roads and left more than hundreds of thousands of customers in North Carolina without power.
More than 100,000 without power in Triangle
The focus on Saturday turns to cleanup and power restoration. At 8 a.m., WRAL News received an update on outages from Duke Energy.
"We've made some good progress, but this is going to get even harder as the day progresses because we're getting away from the easy outages into the much harder outages," Jeff Brooks, a spokesperson with Duke Energy, said.
Brooks explained outages caused by downed trees and damaged utility poles take more time to repair.
"It's just a time-consuming process, the rebuild and reconstruction," Brooks said. "It takes multiple crews several hours, and multiply that by hundreds of these [incidents]. You get a sense of what they're dealing with out there."
The state Department of Transportation is reporting 100 roads closed across the state due to downed trees and power lines.
Brooks asked people to stay home if they can. "Let us do our job -- if you do come across our utility crews, make sure you're moving over and giving them space. If you see downed power lines, please stay away from them."
Brooks said, while crews are working quickly, there is no timeline for all outages to be restored because crews are still assessing damage.
In Wake County at 9 a.m., Duke Energy reported there were 54,000 customers in the dark. There were 26,000 without power in Durham County and over 16,000 in Orange County. Almost one-third of homes in Chatham County were without electricity at 9 a.m.
Since weather conditions have improved, Duke Energy crews worked into the night tacking outages. A statement on the Duke Energy website read, "Crews will work to restore service and quickly and safely as possible, but downed trees and areas of flooding may hinder progress early on."
Flights delayed and canceled at RDU
At 8 a.m. there were 19 flights canceled and numerous delays at Raleigh-Durham International Airport Flight. Some people said they had to spend Friday night inside the airport because of schedule changes.
Rain totals and wind gusts
High wind gusts were reported in N.C. in the hours before and after Hurricane Ian made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane Friday near Georgetown, South Carolina with maximum sustained wind of 85 mph. Rain and winds were felt well into central and eastern N.C.
In Siler City, gusts reached 61 mph. In Fayetteville, gusts reached 56 mph. In the Triangle, gusts were closer to 40 mph.
Early Saturday, President Joe Biden approved a state of emergency in North Carolina and "ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal, and local response efforts due to the emergency conditions resulting from Hurricane Ian."
Cary received over 5 inches of rain Friday, the most in the area, while Raleigh-Durham International Airport recorded over 3 inches of rain.
Road conditions in the Triangle remain mostly passable, though areas of ponding occurred Friday night, leaving some deep water on some roads such as near Glenwood Avenue.
Sept. 30, 2022
A tree came down and power lines were down along London Drive in the Budleigh neighborhood in Raleigh. It appeared the tree was blocking the road.
Along East Whitaker Mill Road near Center Road, a tree blew down, taking with it power lines, causing outages in the area. The tree did not fall on a home or block traffic.
There were also reports of multiple trees fallen in north Raleigh near Durant Road and Litchfield Road. Parts of trees and limbs were also down in Raleigh along Ashe Avenue near Hillsborough Street.
Along Granville Drive and Perquimans Drive in Raleigh, a downed tree was blocking the road.
In the Midtown area of Raleigh near North Hills, a tree fell on a home. A viewer submitted the photo below to WRAL News.
Tree knocks out power to north Durham neighborhood
A tree fell on Gresham Avenue east of the Northgate Dog Park and Ellerbe Creek. The downed tree knocked out power for several people living in the Northgate Park neighborhood.
Durham police blocked off Gresham Avenue as they worked to clear the scene.
There didn’t appear to be any injuries.
Around 40 Duke Energy customers along Ryan Street were also without power on Friday afternoon.
Along the Glenn School Road area of Durham County, there were around 400 customers without power.
On Rosemary Street in Chapel Hill, a tree branch has knocked out power to about 250 homes.
Also, along King Street a tree fell onto a home. Crews from the Carrboro Police Department, Carrboro Fire Department and Orange County Emergency Services were on scene to clear the tree.
In Chapel Hill, South Columbia Street was closed in both directions near Westwood Drive due to a downed tree. The Chapel Hill Fire Department is asking for people to avoid the area.
Someone was inside the car when the tree fell on it. No one was injured, but one of the car's headlights was shattered.
