CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- early 17,000 Duke Energy customers in Mecklenburg County remain without power as of Friday night.
A majority of those outages came Thursday afternoon, as Tropical Storm Michael's strong winds brought more than 150 trees down across the Queen city, many of which fell on power lines.
“At noon, we had power outages to deal with in the Charlotte area. A half-hour later, that spiked to 30,000 and then all of a sudden, it was hundreds of thousands across the Carolinas,” said Bill Norton, spokesperson for Duke Energy.
To help restore power as quickly as possible, Duke says there are more than 9,000 boots on the ground, including power crews from other states.
Friday, city crews were working alongside power crews, equipped with chainsaws, cranes and claws, helping to remove trees from roadways and pull them from atop the power lines.
On roads like Queens Road West and Selwyn Avenue, remnants of large fallen trees were still on the ground, but the roads are now cleared.
On Dilworth Road East in Dilworth, a tow truck also called in to remove a car from on top of a large tree that had fallen across the road. Police say the driver was on her phone around 2:30 a.m. Friday when she drove right into the tree.
“So, I was up in my room and I hear this big boom,” said Sam Quarles, describing the moment a different large tree fell onto power lines outside his home in Myers Park, knocking out power.
“Then I see a couple flashes of bright yellow light coming in my window,” he said.
Duke Energy says falling trees were the cause of a majority of outages, including the Quarels.
“This was really fast moving, hit trees really hard,” Norton said.
Friday, several county buildings including the health department, and more than 30 CMS schools also remained in the dark. School for CMS students was canceled Friday, and so were football games. In a facebook post, CMS wrote:
“Home football games scheduled on Friday, October 12 will be moved to Monday, October 15 or to the open November date to be determined by the schools involved. Away football games scheduled for tomorrow evening will be rescheduled Saturday, Monday, or another mutually agreeable date. Other afternoon and evening activities are cancelled and can be re-scheduled by each school.”
So, when can you expect power to be restored?
Duke energy says power will be restored based on priority with hospitals and police stations at the top of the list.
“Are you on a line where if we restore power 1,000 customers power all comes back on at once, great, we’re going to get to you first. If you’re at the tail-end where you’re the only one in your neighborhood without power, we’re asking for your patience,” Norton said. “If you think of it like a garden hose, we’re starting at the spicket and we’re working out way down the system.”
Norton said it could be days before power for everyone is restored.
