Many in the Icard and George Hildebran communities woke up Thursday to find their lives and homes upended after a suspected twister plowed through eastern Burke County.
The National Weather Service confirmed Thursday afternoon that an EF2 tornado with 115 mph winds left a wake of destruction across southeastern Burke.
More than 50 homes were damaged or destroyed in Wednesday night’s storm and five people were hospitalized. No deaths have been reported.
The damage was so severe that Gov. Bev Perdue visited Burke to tour the affected areas. The county was under a state of emergency from the storm.
Burke Sheriff Steve Whisenant said deputies have blocked roads in the area because of hazardous conditions. He recommends people avoid the area.
Duke Energy reports that more than 1,000 people were in the dark in Burke County at the peak outage, which was at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. Most had power restored by 4:30 a.m. and the power company is still working to replace fallen polls and fix down power lines.
Duke also had 300 people without power in Rutherford as of 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. All power was restored in that county by 12:30 p.m. Thursday.
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