Severe storms leave trail of damage in western North Carolina

WATAUGA COUNTY, N.C — From flooding in Boone to damaged homes in Alexander County, a severe storm Wednesday night left a mess in its path.

A front porch and chimney were ripped from a home in the Sugar Loaf community of Alexander County. The debris was left scattered around the backyard.

“I looked out and everything was good and then the next minute it sounded like a freight train coming through,” home owner Richard Ratliff told Channel 9′s Dave Faherty. “Me and my wife took shelter in the closet.”

The storm left a path of destruction stretching nearly two miles through the north part of the county where Department of Transportation crews spend the day clearing fallen trees.

The same system dumped several inches of rain in Watauga County flooding several major intersections.

Appalachian State University students said they were scrambling Wednesday evening to move their cars to higher ground after their residence hall parking lot flooded due to the severe weather.

Students said the Mountain Laurel Residence Hall parking lot looked like a river.

“My friends and I parked over there and we came down here and we saw a bunch of leaves and dirty water just coming down here, running into people’s cars, running underneath the tires; it was crazy,” said university student Andrew Travis.

A Channel 9 crew in the area counted half a dozen storm drains covered with debris.

The university told Faherty it was sending out work crews Thursday afternoon to try to clear some of those drains to prevent future flooding.

The university wasn’t the only area to be severely flooded.

Channel 9 received video showing street flooding near the major intersections like Highway 105 and Highway 321 as cars maneuvered through knee-deep water.

Public works officials told Faherty it only maintains 10 to 15% of the storm drains in Boone.

The rest are on university property, private roads, or maintained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

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