Thousands might not get power back until Friday after strong storms hit Charlotte area
Thousands of Duke Energy customers in Mecklenburg County could remain without power until Friday after severe storms barreled across the Carolinas on Thursday.
More than 40,000 customers in the Charlotte area lost electricity after the storms knocked down trees and power lines.
“The severe line of storms that passed through the Carolinas ... took down numerous trees, powerlines and poles,” according to a Duke Energy statement.
At 5:15 p.m. Thursday, about 7,000 customers in south Charlotte, 13,000 in northeast Charlotte and about 14,000 in the Concord-Kannapolis area of Cabarrus County remained without electricity, according to the Duke Energy outage map.
By 11 p.m., more than 12,000 customers still had no power in the region — the majority in east and southeast Charlotte and the Concord-Kannapolis area.
“Crews will be working through the night to make repairs and further assess damage,” Duke Energy said.
Many Mecklenburg County customers might not see their power restored until 4:15 p.m. Friday, according to the Duke Energy map late Thursday afternoon.
“Lots of trees down, power lines as well,” meteorologist Bill Martin of the National Weather Service office in Greer, S.C., told The Charlotte Observer just after 5:30 p.m. Thursday. “Most of the heaviest stuff has now moved east of the Charlotte area.”
Still, Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, and Union counties remained under a severe thunderstorm watch until 9 p.m.
NWS meteorologists issued severe-thunderstorm warnings throughout the afternoon for the Charlotte area and Upstate South Carolina.
And the region could be in for more of the same severe weather Friday afternoon, according to the NWS.
“A few of the storms could become severe with damaging winds the main threat, but large hail is also possible,” NWS meteorologists said in an alert Thursday afternoon. “A few of the storms could contain heavy rainfall as well, leading to ponding of water on roadways and low lying areas.”
Friday is expected to be another extremely hot day, with heat index values of 100 to 105 during the afternoon, according to the NWS.
This story was originally published June 16, 2022 at 5:28 PM.