Trees toppled onto homes in Ballantyne as Zeta raced through the Charlotte area
Strong winds and heavy rains from Tropical Storm Zeta downed trees onto homes and roads across the Charlotte region, flooded areas of the N.C. mountains and left a half-million Carolinians without power on Thursday.
The fast-moving storm toppled trees onto at least two homes on the same block in the south Charlotte neighborhood of Edinburgh, beside Ballantyne Country Club, residents told The Charlotte Observer. Other trees fell onto a car in Huntersville and a home in Conover, firefighters said. No injuries were reported.
A tree crushed a postal carrier’s truck as he delivered mail in Statesville, WCCB reported. And a tree smashed into a Catawba County Schools bus at Discovery High School in Newton, the Hickory Daily Record reported. No injuries were reported in either incident.
Wind gusts reached 55 mph in Charlotte at the height of the storm before Zeta’s remnants raced from the area by about 11 a.m., meteorologist Clay Chaney of the National Weather Service office in Greer, S.C., said.
“Back end winds” from the storm lingered into the afternoon in parts of the Charlotte area, Chaney said.
The highest gust in the state was 82 mph in Cashiers, he said. Cashiers is about 165 miles west of Charlotte in the N.C. mountains.
At 1 p.m., 508,000 Duke Energy customers in the Carolinas were without power — about 375,000 in North Carolina and about 133,000 in South Carolina. That included 31,400 in Mecklenburg County.
Before Zeta arrived, the city of Charlotte warned that trees could topple citywide and urged residents to call 911 to report any that fell onto homes or into streets.
In Huntersville, a tree struck a car on N.C. 73 at Brown Mill Road, and a transformer exploded in a park on Old Statesville Road, the Huntersville Fire Department reported. A downed tree blocked Kerns Road, and power lines were reported down on N.C. 73 east of Old Statesville Road (N.C. 115). No injuries were immediately reported.
Elsewhere around the region, there were reports of numerous trees down, including on Nevin Road at Alpine Road.
Earlier, the NWS had issued a rare tropical storm warning for Mecklenburg and surrounding counties, saying winds “will likely combine with saturated soil conditions to knock down numerous trees.”
Tree wrecks house
In Catawba County, the Conover Fire Department tweeted a photo of a tree that crashed onto the roof of a home on 3rd Street NE. No injuries were reported, fire officials said. Conover is about 45 miles north of Charlotte.
In Huntersville, trees also fell onto Gilead Road at Bradford Hill Lane, onto Reese Boulevard West and N.C. 73 West at McGuire Nuclear Station Road, Huntersville firefighters said. Trees down on Kern Road in Huntersville had the road closed in both directions.
In Lenoir, about 75 miles northwest of Charlotte, Zeta caused flash flooding that overtook a one-lane bridge and a nearby church parking lot in the Valmead area, a resident’s video showed.
At 8 a.m., the town of Davidson opened an emergency operations center.
Zeta was a Category 2 hurricane when it made landfall Wednesday afternoon, and its sustained winds were still at 60 mph as it moved across Alabama into Georgia Thursday morning. In North Carolina, the worst of the storm hit the N.C. mountains, NWS meteorologists said.
The weather was not expected to impact the Carolina Panthers-Atlanta Falcons NFL game scheduled to kick off at 8:20 p.m. at Bank of America Stadium.
Only a 40% chance of showers was forecast for the evening before 11 p.m. The field was expected to be wet, which could cause some slipping. The NWS forecast called for a 37% chance of rain at 8 p.m.
At 83 degrees, Charlotte set a record high temperature for Oct. 29, breaking the previous mark of 82 set in 1927, according to the NWS. Asheville also set a record at 82 degrees; its previous mark was 81, set in 2016, NWS meteorologists said.
Friday should be all sunshine in Charlotte, although the high is expected to plummet to 66 degrees — a 17-degree drop from Thursday’s high of 83.
Staff writer Alaina Getzenberg contributed.
This story was originally published October 29, 2020 at 9:04 AM.