Heavy storms, high winds drop trees across parts of city
By Anessa Myers
Published in News on March 5, 2008 1:46 PM
Wayne County and Goldsboro received scattered minor damage from a storm front that crossed eastern North Carolina Tuesday night.
High winds downed trees in several neighborhoods, scattered debris and left some residents without power.
The county received from a half inch to two inches of rain, according to the National Weather Service, with winds gusting up to 50-60 miles per hour at the height of the storm.
Despite some rumors, no tornadoes were recorded in Wayne or any other county, said Mike Strickler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Raleigh this morning.
"It was really just a wind storm," Strickler said. "We didn't have any touch downs."
Some television news stations reported a tornado in Duplin County about 11 p.m.
In Goldsboro, the winds blew a tree onto a mobile home on Ginn Road off of Central Heights Road in the New Hope Fire District, county emergency officials said. David Lancaster said damage was minimal, and no one was injured, but there were other reports in the same mobile home park of minor damage.
There was another downed a tree in Herman Park that fell onto the Kiwanis Club train tracks and damaged a fence, but most of the damage around the city was minimal with scattered tree debris strewn across the parks and a few garbage cans knocked down, Recreation and Parks Director Sonya Shaw said.
Assistant City Manager Tasha Logan said that there was some roofing material that blew off of some of the dilapidated dwellings around the city, but there was nothing else reported around city facilities.
"We didn't have anything major," she said.
Progress Energy officials said parts of the city were without power last night due to tree limbs falling onto power lines.
Wayne had 137 customers that were without power for a time, said Drew Elliot, a spokesman for Progress Energy. He said they were all inside the city limits. Usually, he said, the company experiences more power outages in rural areas during a storm.
Power has been restored to all but two customers, Elliot added.
Mount Olive suffered no wind damage at all, said Town Manager Charles Brown early today.
"We haven't had anything reported yet from wind," he said. "What we basically got here was just shy of two inches of rain, and that's the problem we unfortunately have is rain runoff. I think we weathered it pretty well fortunately."