LAURINBURG — Former Hurricane Eta, which made landfall twice in Florida earlier this week, lashed the Carolinas as a topical storm on Wednesday and Thursday, causing widespread flooding.

The city of Laurinburg, as well as surrounding areas of Scotland County, wasn’t spared.

According to Laurinburg City Manager Charles Nichols, four inches of rain fell in the area over a span of just 24 hours.

“We had a few areas such as Presbyterian Park, King Street, West Wood and a few other areas to see standing water at times in the roadways during Thursday’s downpours,” said Nichols. “Thankfully, we did not run into any major issues.

“As far as power outages, we were fortunate to not see an overwhelming amount of those either,” added Nichols. “We had a transformer blow, which made power flicker in the Prince Street area and left a few without power for a short period of time.”

Nichols attributed this to the hard work the public works crew does to keep the road drains clean and functional.

“Our street crews work 24/7, 365 days a year to keep our roadways safe,” said Nichols. “We also just started our part-time seasonal workers, which help keep storm drains and ditches clean through the cold season.

In the county

Roylin Hammond, director of Emergency Services for Scotland County, said there were some vehicle accidents as a result of heavy rain, wet roads, standing water and poor visibility.

“There was no report of damaged roads in Scotland County,” said Hammond. “However, there were roads and highways west of Scotland County which did have serious damage.”

Hammond also stated many ditches have been cleaned out to allow for better drainage.

“Some known problem areas have had additional work done to help with drainage and numerous bridges have been replaced in the past few years which have played a part in creating better drainage in problem areas,” said Hammond. “Scotland County was again lucky to avoid much damage from recent weather events.”

Also, according to Hammond to his knowledge, there were no power outages in the county or damage to power lines.

JJ Melton can be reached at jmelton@laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com. To support the Laurinburg Exchange, subscribe here: https://laurinburgexch.wpenginepowered.com/subscribe.