A winter storm which brought heavy rains and strong winds led to downed trees, several which fell onto houses and contributed to an 18-wheeler hydroplaning on Interstate 95 Tuesday.

As of this report there were 603 Dominion Energy customers without power in Halifax County and 131 without power in Northampton County.

Including customers of electric cooperatives, there were about 1,500 people without power this morning in Halifax County, said Buddy Wrenn, the county’s emergency management coordinator.

“It felt like a nor’easter,” he said. “There was a lot of wind and a lot of rain.”

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With a heavy rainfall on Saturday and again on Tuesday many root systems became ripe for being easily disturbed.

He said the Warren County E-911 Center lost power and there was a time during the storm that those calls were coming through Halifax.

In the southbound lane of I-95 near the 158 mile marker, an 18-wheeler carrying orange juice hydroplaned and the driver was transported for medical treatment.

Wrenn said the crash compromised the tanker and some orange juice did leak.

He said other than the tanker crash he had no reports of other injuries.

“We got lucky,” Roanoke Rapids Public Works Director Larry Chalker said. “It could have been worse.”

He said winds blew a carport onto Eighth Street at Wilson Street.

Roanoke Rapids Fire Chief Jason Patrick said most of the calls Tuesday came within a four-hour window.

On West Chaloner Drive a tree brushed a house and damaged the HVAC unit while another tree on West Chaloner came through the roof.

On Henry Street a tree punctured the roof and ceiling of a house while on Madison Street a tree fell on a car.

Patrick said at Old Farm Apartments bricks were apparently blown off the wall by heavy winds.

The storm started by taking a power line in the city down and a tree fell across Roanoke Avenue near Wilkie Real Estate around 2:15 p.m. “Everyone did a good job to get the tree up quickly,” he said. “Public Works, the fire department, police and Dominion worked well together to assist everyone through the storm.”