This morning county Emergency Management Coordinator Tina Hinton was pouring through 50 pages of reports following the storm, which left between 4,500 to 5,000 people without power.
The storm, which created rain, lightning, hail and straight line winds blew a roof off a single wide mobile home at Pugh’s Trailer Park in Littleton. The four people living in the trailer were not injured.
Trees blocked Justice Branch Road near Aurelian Springs school and blocked Highway 158 at Roper Springs Road. There were also reports of trees blocking Eastern Shores Road and Highway 158 near Information Grocery. “We had trees down over the entire county.”
Hinton said there were 17 wrecks reported at one time as motorists slid off roadways made slick by rain and hail.
A roof blew off a house on Roper Springs Road and numerous people reported trees down in yards.
Hinton said the storm struck with little warning and the county was never notified by the National Weather Service. Wind speed was estimated at 58 miles per hour.
Weldon Fire Chief Rusty Bolt said a tree crashed into the bedroom of a house in the 900 block of Washington Avenue while two people were in bed. They were not injured.
Bolt said the fire department received at least seven calls from people without oxygen during the storm.
Roanoke Rapids Police Chief Jeff Hinton said the storm caused a tree to crash into a house at Second and Vance streets. No injuries were reported.
Northampton County Emergency Management Director Tim Byers said the storm was “pretty rough” from Jackson to the lake.
Lightning apparently hit a house on the Jackson Bypass Road and caused a minor fire. Straight line winds blew half of a roof off a mobile home in Gaston and a couple of trees crashed into a house and vehicle at the lake.
Tina Hinton said a similar storm is expected today and encouraged motorists to pull off the road. “The main problem was the time,” she said of the storm. “It happened during the commute home.”
She also said people who experience power outages should not call 911 but their power companies.
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