CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Over 3,000 Duke Energy customers are without power in Mecklenburg County following Tuesday's severe weather outbreak, according to the company's outage map.
Over 17,000 people are without power across North Carolina with the majority of those outages being reported in the eastern part of the state, including Jacksonville, Fayetteville and Raleigh. In South Carolina, Duke Energy reported at 2 p.m. that around 1,700 customers are without power.
Tens of thousands of outages were reported in the Charlotte area on Tuesday, as storms swept across the Carolinas. At one point, more than 3,700 outages were reported in the Claremont area in Catawba County. According to Catawba County Communications, one person died around 1 p.m. along Evening Drive, located south of Old Catawba Road. The communications center also confirmed the National Weather Service will be in the area Wednesday to determine if the area was impacted by a tornado or straight-line winds.
At the height of the storm Tuesday afternoon, there were more than 76,000 customers in the Charlotte area without power and around 120,000 throughout the state.
The WCNC Charlotte Weather team said the strong-to-severe thunderstorms would include gusts up to 50 mph, flooding rains up to 4 inches, and even tornadoes in the Charlotte area. Even North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper declared a State of Emergency ahead of the severe weather threat.
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