Thousands across Western NC without power Sunday as winter storm continues

By Brittany Whitehead

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    ASHEVILLE, North Carolina (WLOS) — Thousands of Duke Energy customers in Western North Carolina were without power Sunday, Jan. 16, with four counties hit the hardest by outages.

As of 12:30 p.m. Sunday, Macon County was reporting more than 4,000 without power. Jackson County, Buncombe and Swain were also reporting customers without power in the thousands.

Ahead of the winter storm, Duke Energy officials on Saturday estimated more than 700,000 customers could lose power over the duration of the storm, which is expected to continue through most of the day Sunday.

Across the state, Duke reported midday Sunday that about 89,000 customers were without power, most due to the winter storm.

Avery County: 89 Buncombe County: 4,114 Cherokee County, NC: 101 Clay County: 0 Graham County: 1 Haywood County: 20 Henderson County: 1,038 Jackson County: 3,526 Macon County: 4,357 Madison County: McDowell County: 149 Mitchell County: 36 Polk County: 24 Rutherford County: 17 Swain County: 1,015 Transylvania County: 59 Yancey County:

Duke Energy officials also cautioned WNC residents to prepare for multi-day outages in some areas, as crews work to assess and respond to get power back on.

Crews are not responding to outages until the storm has cleared. On its website under “Estimated Time of Restoration” for each county, Duke Energy says, “Repairs and damage assessment to begin once storm clears.”

Gov. Roy Cooper spoke Sunday after noon about the storm, and addressed power outages across the state. Of N.C.’s 100 counties, 25 have declared states of emergency.

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