Wind damage reported

High winds over the weekend led to sporadic power outages, downed trees and limbs and major damage to at least one home in the county.

Gusts of up to 69 miles per hour were recorded at the airport in Jefferson around midnight last Saturday night and into Sunday morning, with sustained winds at more than 40 miles per hour. Alleghany does not have a reporting station that offers hourly data. The nearest station to the Alleghany border, the Upper Mountain Research Station in Laurel Springs, recorded gusts of 26 to 28 miles per hour at the same time. As was obvious by damage recorded to at least one home in the Glade Valley community, gusts of much stronger force could have been recorded in other areas of the county.

Blustery winds continued until Monday morning, although much diminished from their strongest force early Sunday morning.

Power Outages

Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation suffered numerous power outages system wide beginning last Saturday night at 11 p.m. Outages reached a peak on Sunday, totalling 6,323 by noon.

“We were battling winds reported as high as 80 miles per hour, causing some large trees to fall across the power lines, breaking poles in many locations,” Whitener said. “Linemen had to cut the trees in many instances and install new power poles in many locations. In other locations, they were able to simply repair the downed power lines.”

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