By Jessie Burchette
jburchette@salisburypost.com
After a fierce storm moved through the county Monday evening, hundreds of residents spent a sweltering night without electricity.
Trees and limbs downed utility lines in a wide area stretch from west Rowan through China Grove and eastward.
Around 1,800 customers reported outages shortly after the storm moved through at 7 p.m.
Most of the Duke customers had their power back on before 3 a.m. Tuesday.
“We got a big chunk at 2:40 ó about 850,” Duke Energy spokeswoman Paige Sheehan said.
Sheehan said the China Grove area had the most outages.
Duke also had outage reports in the Sumner, Faith and Majolica Road area.
Large limbs on North Main Street tore down lines, forcing emergency personnel to close the street for most of the night to allow crews and equipment to make repairs.
While China Grove police and firefighters were busy responding to emergency calls, the town escaped largely unscathed.
“We’re OK; we had a little debris,” Town Manager Bill Pless said Tuesday.
An emergency generator kicked on at the town’s Public Works Department.
“We came out a little better than we thought, based on first reports,” Pless said, noting that he got several phone calls shortly after the storm moved through.
“Things could have been worse. Thank goodness our water and sewer system came out unscathed,” he said.