Strong winds and heavy rains caused damage in Scotch Meadows Monday morning, where experts say a microburst occurred just after 8.

The storm downed tress and power lines, tore roofs off of barns and briefly blocked travel on several roads.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage has already been reported, and several horses were hurt.

However, no human was reported seriously injured in the storm

Emergency officials said the worse of the damage was on McLeod Road, where several properties had trees on houses and barns with roofs ripped away by strong winds.

"I been in tornadoes before," said resident Jim Stanton. "I was ready for the whole roof of the house to lift off."

He said he heard a banging noise, the winds were roaring and trees were crashing.

An insurance representative on his property estimated that the storm did at least $100,000 to $150,000 to his property.

Stanton had five buildings damaged, including the tree lying on his house, but seemed relatively unfazed by the storm.

"It ain't nothing but a piece of dirt and some wood," Stanton said. He said he would rebuild.

"We have a group at Stewartsville Baptist Church that does disaster relief," Stanton said. The group has been to several disaster sites, including assisting with the Hurricane Katrina cleanup.

The property next-door, Wilson's Farm, had even more buildings damaged and more trees down.

A number of trees fell across the driveway, dragging down a power-line that crossed the property. A stall set up in a pasture had fallen over, the roof landing about 50 feet from the timbers on which it sat.

Three horse trailers were tipped over, one of which was laying on its roof.

Barn owner Tripp Wilson was out of town at the time of the storm and was unavailable for comment.

Natalie Norwood, an employee of the farm, said she was in the residence on the property at the time of the storm.

She said that it started off with rain and lightning, then it started to hail. The rain started coming down stronger.

Then the winds hit.

"It sounded like a freight train coming through the house," Norwood said. "We ran to the bathroom."

She said they stayed there for just a short while before it got really quiet.

That's when they came out and saw all of the damage.

She said that all of the horses were accounted for at Wilson's Farm, and that none of their horses were seriously injured.

She was over with an injured horse at the Stanton's residence.

The horse had gotten caught on a piece of debris either during or just after the storm, according to Dr. Laura Kellam, the school veterinarian for St. Andrews.

The horse had a nearly two-foot long laceration on its chest. The horse seemed calm as Kellam worked on the animal.

Lew Wagner and Ricky Ward, both residents of McLeod Road, were in their yards Monday morning removing debris.

"It just got rough all of a sudden," Wagner said. "The wind was blowing everything around... All you could hear was a roar."

His mailbox was broken off in the storm and his children's trampoline was damaged.

"The hail woke me up," Ward said. "I couldn't see anything."

Ward did not suffer property damage, but still had to pick up some fallen limbs and his trash can, which was blown over.

Faye Barber, of Fox Crossing Drive, also reported some property damage.

She rushed home from work when she heard that the storm had hit her house.

Her brother estimated that 60 percent of the trees were down.

While no trees landed on her house, shingles were stripped from a section of the roof. Water was leaking into light fixtures and flooding part of the house.

"The main road [that was hit] was McLeod Road," said Roylin Hammond, Emergency Services Director for Scotland County.

Hammond said that much of Scotch Meadows was affected by the downburst, along with parts of Hasty Road and Shaw Road.

"The original report was that someone was trapped in a house or structure," Hammond said. The report turned out to be untrue, but emergency services was still needed to clear the road.

"While they were there, they cleared a path," Hammond said. Before that, "people could not access road."

They also helped clear a private road of debris so it could be usable.

"To our knowledge, no one was injured," Hammond said. "There were numerous barns that were damaged"

"The structural damage that happened to homes seemed to be minor," Hammond said. He said the damage did not appear to be so bad that homes could not be repaired.

Hammond said that on Pea Bridge Road a garage was blown to the other side of the road.

"It was a devastating thing for the people that were involved, but all-in-all we were pretty lucky," Hammond said.

The damaging winds, which most residents assumed was a tornado, was in fact a different kind of weather

"The National Weather Service said this was a microburst," Hammond said.

He explained that a microburst is a lot of "straight-line winds that come down to the ground a just kind of explode."

He noted that many of the downed trees had fallen in different directions, a result of the winds scattering in all directions.

"If there had been tornadic activity, you would have seen things driven into the ground," Hammond said,

He added that a tornado would have caused more damage.

"There was a lot going on," said Hammond.

He said that power crews were trying to restore lines while people had chain saws and back hoes removing debris from people's yards.

Hammond said that this was the most damaging storm in years, though it paled in comparison to the 1984 tornadoes.

"This will not be declared as a disaster that will have any kind of state or federal reimbursement money," Hammond said.

The Laurinburg Fired Department, Scotland County Rescue Squad, DOT Crews, Laurinburg police, sheriff's deputies, N.C. Highway Patrol and the American Red Cross all responded to the incident, Hammond said.

"We have been providing canteen for the first responders, electrical crews, firemen, family and friends of the affected homes and people in the neighborhood," said Carol Ann Lentz, executive director of the Scotland County Chapter of the American Red Cross. "Everything that we did do today was donated by area businesses.

"At this point, we are not opening a shelter. No one has received any temporary housing."

She said that everyone has been able to stay with family and friends.

"There is a lot of damage, but I do not know as to what extent," Lentz said.

Lentz said the damage went beyond Scotch Meadows. She said that on 501 South, near the Robeson County line, a home was damaged by a fallen tree.

"There was a home that a tree fell on the house," Lentz said. "The house was pretty much split."

While the storm damage was not expected, Lentz said the Red Cross was ready to handle the emergency.

"This is what we prepare for the other 364 days a year so we can respond to when the community needs," Lentz said.

"We were going from house to house, making sure the residents were okay," said John Johnson, of the Laurinburg Fire Department. "Also help remove debris from roadway."

Inside the city limits was relatively unaffected by the storm.

"We've had a few limbs down, but nothing major," said Stacey McQuage, Public Works Director. "We've had a little bid of flooding."

He said the flooding was mainly down covington Street near the elementary schools and said the waters receded within a few hours.

The storm caused a number of power outages, according to emergency officials.

Among power companies, Lumbee River EMC appeared to take brunt of the damage in Scotland County.

A company spokesperson said that roughly 2,500 of their customers lost power in the storm.

She said that, as of approximately 3 p.m. on Monday, only about ten people were still without power. She anticipated that work crews would have power restored by Monday night, and said that work crews would stay on site until all power was restored.

"Our main focus is getting power restored," the spokesperson said.

Jeff Brooks, with Progress Energy, also reported a number of outages.

"We had a little over 200 customers that were without power as a result of the storm" in Scotland County, Brooks said. He said that 1,900 lost power in Robeson County.

According to Brooks, all but a handful of costumers had their power restored by 12:30 p.m. He added that, as of 4:30 p.m., there were still five in the county without power.

He said the power outages were centered around a power line on Hasty Road and a power line at the corner of Rockingham and St. Johns Church roads.