30,000 and counting without power as heavy snow causes outages across NC

More than 30,000 people were without power as of about 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday as heavy, wet snow caused widespread outages across the state.

The most outages were centered in the middle of the state, where the heaviest snow fell.

Thousands were without power in Wake, Durham, Orange, Franklin, Moore, Lee and Chatham counties as of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Duke Energy reported. The highest number of power outages reported in the Triangle, with tens of thousands without power in Raleigh and Durham as of about 5:30 p.m. as snow continued to fall.

N.C. Emergency Management reported that about 17,000 were without power as of 3 p.m. Wednesday. About an hour later, 13,000 more were in the dark and growing and more snow was still falling.

Heavy snow collecting on tree limbs and power lines caused some of the outages, along with wrecks involving power poles. With temperatures dropping into the evening, snow on roads, trees and power lines was expected to freeze, bringing potentially more outages.

This story was originally published January 17, 2018 at 4:56 PM with the headline "30,000 and counting without power as heavy snow causes outages across NC."