GREENSBORO, N.C. — Neighbors in the Lindley Park area filed complaints to Duke Energy, following a power outage that happened early Friday morning.
Many neighbors reported hearing something that sounded like an explosion inside their homes.
"I knew that was a tree and then I just heard this explosion," said Laura Bell, who lives on Beechwood Street, "I thought it was a building exploding."
"I heard two pops," said Robert McIver, who lives on Walker Avenue, "I assumed they were circuit breakers tripping. At that point, I went outside to just sort of check on things and see what was going on - because I did lose power in my house."
"I was standing at the sink in the kitchen, and an outlet right beside me exploded. Sparks came out," said Dana Goram, "By then, my heart was in my throat and I could hardly speak. I wanted to run out and scream and say did it happen to you?!"
When power was eventually restored, they found major appliances such as stoves, microwaves, dishwashers, refrigerators and washing machines - were fried.
On Longview Street, Beth Beister lost an A/C unit, washing machine, stove, computer, and the oxygen pump to her fish tank.
"If you add it all up, at the end probably [cost] close to 15,000 [dollars]," she said.
Across the neighborhood, even surge protectors didn't stand a chance. One on Beechwood caught fire. Luckily, the homeowners were up - and noticed the flames.
"If they would’ve been out to breakfast or whatever, this house would’ve burned down no doubt about it," said Bill Eckard.
Now, homeowners are left wondering if Duke Energy will pay for the property losses.
"If their equipment was damaged, and it damaged our equipment why would they not be responsible for it?" asked Kathy Mabe.
A Duke Energy representative said, around 7:30 Friday morning on Masonic Drive, a large tree outside of Duke Energy's right of way fell across a 24-kilovolt circuit that caused a power line to burn down, and fall on a 4-kilovolt circuit. This domino effect caused a power outage impacting around 2,000 homes for about an hour. More than 350 homes had power out from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Duke Energy said some customers had an increase of voltage to their home as a result.
The representative tells WFMY News 2 several claims were filed but were denied because the event was outside of Duke Energy's control, and was not due to company negligence.
We checked with the City of Greensboro, since the tree that fell was on city property, behind the Lindley Recreation Center. A team from the Field Operations department went out to inspect the tree, and determined that it was healthy. The city did not have any work orders or complaints regarding this specific tree.
We'll keep you updated as we learn more.