More storms likely for Charlotte area after overnight system cuts power to thousands
Thousands of Charlotte-area residents and businesses were without power early Sunday after strong storms swept through the region overnight, Duke Energy reported.
More than 1,900 customers in Mecklenburg County had no power at noon, according to the Duke Energy outage map. There are 34 active outages across the county, according to the outage map.
The causes of some of the outages is unknown, the map showed.
An outage near SouthPark, first reported around 2 a.m., was caused by an object coming in contact with the power lines, according to Duke Energy. Power had been restored by Sunday evening.
Jennifer Orsomarso, who lives at the Southpark Commons Apartment Homes, told WSOC she lost power late Saturday night and had to toss out refrigerated food by Sunday afternoon.
“I can’t get things done that I wanted to get done. Like I said, the food has all gone in the garbage. I know my neighbors have had to throw their food in the garbage,” she told the Observer’s news partner.
Around 6,000 Duke Energy customers were without power across the area Sunday morning, WCNC reported.
More scattered storms are expected across the Charlotte area Sunday evening, according to a National Weather Service alert. The region will see “frequent cloud-to-ground lightning, gusty winds and torrential downpours,” according to the alert.
A few storms may become severe and produce “damaging straight-line winds,” according to the alert. And flash flooding is possible if multiple storms move over the same areas, the NWS said.
The threat of storms and strong winds was expected to increase around 4 p.m. Sunday, with a chance for gusts as high as 18 miles per hour, according to the NWS Charlotte forecast. The area could see up to a quarter inch of rain throughout the evening, according to the forecast.
Monday’s forecast shows a high chance of showers and thunderstorms throughout the afternoon, with similarly high wind gusts.
Storms on Saturday night included lightning strikes that delayed the 7 p.m. start of the Charlotte FC soccer match against Columbus at Bank of America Stadium.
The match finally started at 10:18 p.m., but the teams were only able to play about 16 minutes, The Charlotte Observer reported. Major League Soccer called the match at 11:37 p.m. Neither Charlotte FC nor the league have announced a makeup date.
This story was originally published July 31, 2022 at 12:37 PM.
