LAURINBURG — Scotland County has seen its share of rain over the past several days, but on Friday, just before the morning rush hour, Mother Nature hurled a massive thunderstorm at the region that brought heavy rain and caused havoc for motorists and businesses.
According to the National Weather Service in Raleigh, about one-half of an inch to two inches fell on the area between Thursday and Friday morning.
And Scotland County was expected to see more rain
“Some storms will be coming in from the west with the possibility of another half-inch to 1.25 inches” between Friday and Saturday, a meteorologist said.
In Laurinburg, some power outages were experienced and at least one business was affected by the strong Friday morning storm. WLNC radio saw its on-air presence affected to some degree for nearly an hour, between 6:30 and 7:30 a.,m.
“We had unusually strong lighting flashes — the first caused a problem with a piece of equipment which controls the audio volume of the station,” explained Gary Gallman, owner of WLNC. “That caused terrible distortion on our FM signal, although the AM continued as normal.
“We were able to get that corrected within a few minutes, but the next flash knocked off the power to our main building,” he added. “Thanks to our backup generator, we were back on the air in a few minutes.”
Within the city
Residents and businesses in the city might have lost power for a short amount of time or seen lights flicker, but there were no major outages according to City Manager Charles Nichols. Nichols said that while there were some spot outages, no major circuits went out during the storm.
“Before the storm, everyone was out clearing the storm drains,” Nichols said. “We have our problem areas, but when you get about 17 inches of rain in a week all that water is trying to go to the same place … we did have to put some high water signs out this morning in some areas because water was on the road.”
In the county
According to Roylin Hammond, Scotland County’s emergency services director, most county roads were spared from flooding. There was debris scattered throughout the county, but no fallen trees blocking roadways and no roads had been closed.
Sheriff Ralph Kersey said he was given a report Friday morning htat stated some roadways were affected by standing water. Thjose areas included:
— The intersection of Highland and McGirts Bridge Road had one lane flooded at the intersection.
— Pitt Street in Washington Park was flooded.
— There was standing water blocking most of one lane on Old Laurel Hill Church Road, just off Sneads Grove on the Fieldcrest Road side.
In the fields
“This is affecting crops badly,” said Randy Wood, Scotland County Cooperative Extension director. “We’re halfway through our cotton-planting season and soybeans are supposed to begin being planted soon.
“We’ve had such extreme weather over the past five to six years,” Wood said. “When it’s hot, it’s extremely hot, and when it rains, it majorly rains … we cannot seem to get a year with traditional weather.”
Wood said the county’s farmers have already lost money this season, but there’s still time to get a good crop.
“It’s supposed to be pretty next week, so hopefully it will dry out,” he said.
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