As of 7 this morning, Duke Energy reported 5,000 customers within its Salisbury service area remained without power. Most of those customers were thought to be in far eastern reaches of Rowan County and throughout Stanly County.

That doesn’t mean that trees, snapping from the weight of snow and ice, won’t be falling on power lines elsewhere and causing outages, Duke spokesmen warn.

Overall, the Duke Power system in North Carolina and South Carolina still had 47,600 customers without electricity this morning, and spokesmen said they might not get electricity until Thursday.

The Charlotte district office still had the most outages at 17,000, followed by Union County with 7,500 and Durham with 4,900.

Other eastern Rowan and Stanly County residents are customers of Union Electric Membership Corp., an electric cooperative hit especially hard in the Monroe area.

Linda Greble, whose family lives on Orchard Road off Bringle Ferry Road, said this morning that her home has been without power since Monday night. Her frustration has come in trying to reach Union Electric.

“I tried calling all day long yesterday, and it’s busy,” she said. “We have a wood stove and also have a gas fireplace, so we have no problem with heat.”

The family gets water out of a nearby creek for their horses.

Living in an isolated section, the Greble family didn’t have power for two weeks after Hurricane Hugo passed through the area in September 1989. Linda Greble said she’s hoping the 8 inches of snow her area received Monday night doesn’t lead to a repeat of that long ordeal.

N.C. electric cooperatives reported 65,000 customers without power this morning, with Union, Anson, Moore, Montgomery and Randolph counties among the hardest hit.

Meanwhile, Interstate 85 and primary roads in Rowan County appeared dry and “in pretty good shape,” said Chuck White, maintenance supervisor for the N.C. Department of Transportation in Rowan County.

But Rowan County motorists still had their troubles. Trees on both sides of the road sheltered some sections from the afternoon sun Tuesday, leaving patches of ice for motorists Tuesday and this morning.

A pickup truck overturned Tuesday afternoon on Bringle Ferry Road injuring a Morgan Elementary third-grader.

On Enochville School Road Tuesday afternoon, two vehicles slid on a solid patch of ice and collided, Enochville Fire and Rescue Department Lt. Jason Goodman said. One of the drivers, Michelle Hosch, is a Salisbury Post carrier who was delivering newspapers.

Her husband and daughter were with her, and her husband went to Rowan Regional Medical Center for treatment. A N.C. Highway Patrol report on the accident was not available this morning.

“It was a real blind spot for the sun,” Goodman said, describing how the road never warmed up enough Tuesday to melt the ice.

State road crews concentrated today on scraping or salting less traveled secondary and dirt roads in Rowan.

White’s maintenance office has been operating continually since 2 p.m. Saturday, when an afternoon storm first made roads treacherous. That was followed by an overnight storm Monday that dumped up to 8 inches of snow in the far eastern regions of Rowan County.

“They’ve done a great job keeping after it, trying to get the roads open for the public,” White said of his road crews.

The harsh weather has closed Rowan-Salisbury Schools for three consecutive days. Catawba, Livingstone and Rowan-Cabarrus Community colleges held classes today, although Rowan-Cabarrus Community College delayed its opening until 10 a.m.

Some private schools, such as Rockwell and North Hills Christian schools, also canceled classes today, while others, such as Sacred Heart Catholic, operated with a morning delay.

Snow Tuesday took the last of four spring break days in the Rowan-Salisbury Schools, Kathy Walters, director of information, said this morning.

And students will make up today’s cancellation on Feb. 21, a Monday.

Feb. 18, a Friday, and Feb. 21 were scheduled as system work days or snow make-up days starting with Monday.

But she didn’t know whether schools will operate Thursday when the Post went to press today.

“It will totally depend upon what the temperature does today,” she said. “It’s supposed to go from to 32 to 34 and be sunny, which is helpful, but ... “

But she doesn’t know whether that will be helpful enough. Tonight’s temperatures could dip as low as 20 degrees, forecasters said.

Schools were called off late Tuesday afternoon, and Superintendent Dr. Joe McCann aims at making a call by 5 p.m. today, if possible. Transportation employees will check the roads between 3:30 and 4 p.m. today.

“They know where the trouble spots are,” she said. “We still have some real bad roads in the eastern part of the county.”

When the decision is made, information will be available on the Rowan-Salisbury Schools’ recorded school information line, 639-7050; the main number, 636-7500, followed by pressing 1; radio or television; and cancellations.com on the Internet.

The Rowan County Convention and Visitors Bureau said the weather forced officials to cancel a large regional women’s soccer competition, which had been scheduled this weekend at Catawba and the Gordon Hurley Soccer Complex.

City buses resumed their normal routes at 7:45 a.m. today. Salisbury residents are being asked to take their rollout garbage carts to the curb and leave them there until city collection crews can pick them up.

In some areas of the city, that may mean leaving the carts by the curb into the weekend, Public Services Director Vernon Sherrill said.

Gary and Brenda Rummage, who live off Old Beatty Ford Road near Gold Hill, benefited from their Y2K planning last year. In those preparations, they bought a generator for their house, which came in handy Tuesday while they were without power for 8 1/2 hours.

The generator kept their well pump running so they had plenty of water, heat and lights. The Rummages have four horses and 20 cows.

“Gary bought a generator for Y2K and this purpose,” Brenda Rummage said this morning, explaining that when a storm hits and people lose power, they usually are among the first people affected.

“Yes, it was a good investment.”