Looks like richmond is technically under it. But that will likely be dropped soon because this is the active line we are concerned with. Going forward producing toward in additionic thunderstorms and that is moving to the east. We could see showers and thunder through the evening. And we are not as concerned with Severe WeatherGoing Forward in the shortterm with what is left behind this line. But we have a high wind warning in effect and areas under a flood watch tonight. Because this one line is moving, does not mean that our concerns are over with through the rest of the night. More details on that and snow on the way for the mountains. A lot to talk about in the complete first alert forecast in a few minutes. Thank you. Depending where you are the sun may be shining. This is one of the effects of the storm. A massive tree falling and smashed that car there. One was inside. Strong winds whipped into the mecklenberg county around lunchtime. It was a trees did not stand a chance. Power lines didnt either. Wbtvs Brody Oconnell surveying the damage in charlotte. I know you have been all over town. Where are you right now . Right now on wilkinson boulevard, they actually just reopened the outbound lanes here because of power lines that were down up at little rock road. And that is the intersection that you are seeing off in the distance here. So i went down earlier when the outbound lane was closed and i talked to a police officer. And he said the situation is duke energy is doing their best to get the road reopened. Right now its the outbound lane that is open. Now, as far as the inbound lane when they will open that up i do not know. Police are hoping to get that open by rushhour but trying to ease tension off of the power poles that started to bend in on the roadway. Its been a busy day in charlotte. Count on us for your best storm coverage. Brody oconnell wbtv on your side. With the winds gusting the threat is not over. Thank you. Lets check in with alex giles live in the alert center. I was thinking about this. People losing their power because the wind was so strong. You saw the video of the downed lines and look at the Duke Energy Outage map. You can see the icons displaying the outages in the charlotte area. 14,000 customers without power in mecklenberg county. And 5,000 in gaston county. We will keep watching the numbers, wow that is an active map. Well keep you updated here in the alert center as the utility crews work to get the power restored across the region. Across the foothills the storm left hundreds without power and knocked trees down and crushed a house in longview. Storm this afternoon. The storm moved through so quickly there was no time to hunker down. If you were not in a safe place you did not have time to get anywhere. It lasted just a few minutes. Dumped a lot of water. It was the wind that was the issue. This is what it left in its wake; trees down across the area. Interstate 40 in burke county had an eastbound lane blocked by a tree that a trooper and volunteer started clearing. Mess for the highways today. It wasnt just roadways. One tree cut a home in half in longview. The Biggest Issue power lines. Robinhood road closed after a tree knocked down lines there. Strange weather for february. And made for a busy day for emergency personnel. And we are getting some gusty breezes in the area officials are hoping that the worst of in longview, Steve Ohnesorge wbtv on your side. Thank you. You will remember yesterday we were on the air telling you about this system just getting its act together on the gulf coast. The damage in louisiana devastating. Two People Killed in an rv park. 30 others hurt. You can see just how bad the damage is here. Many homes there destroyed. Be prepared for the next storm. Its easy when you have the wbtv weather app its free and includes a radar and sends alerts when lightning strikes near you. Time to look at the roads this afternoon. Tonya rivens is in the first alert traffic center. Hey, kristen. And good afternoon, your first peoples bank. As we check in on 277 now right around the south boulevard exit traffic is flowing nicely but problems on the roads with the weather and trees and power lines down. Road closures on 277 outer at i77. And 277 outer at carson boulevard another closure. Due to fallen trees. And notice on i77 southbound we have volume starting to build from center city or the 277 exit towards remount road. A couple accidents around the area one on the mapping system at north tryon leaving center city. And other areas around davidson street and right by 277, weve got situations that is creating partial lane closures. Slowmoving traffic but most importantly be careful as you are out and about. As they work to repair these problems. Thank you. We are getting more damage reports from the storm that moved through the area. Lets check out the video captured from our hd towercam. Impressive. Check back with the Firstalert Weather Team coming up and have forced into clean up mode. phone ringing you cant deal with something, by ignoring it. But thats how some president ial candidates seem to be dealing with social security. Americans work hard, and pay into it. So our next president needs a real plan to keep it strong. elephant noise donkey noise one person is in the hospital this afternoon after a tractortrailer crash on i85 in charlotte. This is the scene near sam wilson road. The tractortrailer hit a car pulled of on the side of the road at 12 30. The driver of that car was taken the injuries not lifethreatening. The truck driver is charged with failing to maintain lane control. Right now live to union county. Crews are breaking ground on the 2016 st. Jude dream home. Someone is going to have the chance to win this home. Proceeds will benefit st. Jude childrens hospital. The mayor and city officials are there to kickoff the construction. Because of fundraisers like this children can receive treatment at st. Jude free of charge. Its great. For information and lots more to come go to wbtv. Com. Keep it here as well on wbtv and we will keep you updated on the progress as they begin construction on this st. Jude dream home in monroe, union county. 450,000 home. Raffling it off later this year. Its fun to watch the progress of that home because you never know and it becomes we are now three days away from a primary in south carolina. How the democratic president ial candidates are making their final pushes in the palmetto state. And we have severe thunderstorm warnings to tell you about and let you know what you can expect with the weather your com our Firstalert Weather Team is tracking a storm that caused heavy rain. We will check back in with our meteorologists in just a moment. Campaign 2016 right now. Donald trump now on a threestate winning streak. He dominated the field winning the nevada caucuses building more momentum toward the republican nomination. Trump won with 46 of the votes. And marco rubio second ahead of ted cruz. Mean time in south carolina, attention shifted to the democratic party. We are three days away from voters heading to the pole polls. Bern bern and Hillary Clinton are making their final pushes in the palmetto state. Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders were in the palmetto state today. Hillary clinton just finished up in columbia and now will head on to a speech in sumter. I am in rock hill where former president clinton will be campaigning on hillarys behalf also today Bernie Sanders spoke in columbia about fixing poverty in the palmetto state where he was joined by a couple of state representatives who are endorsing him. He told supporters he is focusing on other states ahead of super tuesday but he is not writing off south carolina. Hillary clinton is heavily favored here. Nonwhite voters makeup 55 of those voting in the democratic primary. A major endorsement just last week from jim cliburg is helping Hillary Clintons cause and she spoke this morning and stopped in columbia this afternoon and is making her way to sumter in an hour. Many people expect clinton to win. Yet she continues to campaign and Bernie Sanders is not in the palmetto state he is focusing ahead of super tuesday. We will talk to a political expert about that strategy and what that may meaea for voters in the palmetto state tonight at 5 00. Now reporting live in rock hill, a blustery york county. Hold on. Appreciate it. Big day ahead in campaign 2016 in south carolina. You can see how windy it was. Lets get to alex giles live in the alert center. I know you are tracking where that storm is going. We have a live picture from the cbs affiliate in the triangle this is wral. You see the dark skies over durham they had tornado warnings in the western parts of the triangle. We will watch for the latest images as the storm moves across the state. And now we are dealing with the wind damage the storm is going to be hitting this area soon and we will be watching for the latest videos that come out of the triangle. And bring you them here in the alert center and pictures and video we might get pertaining to the storm. Back to you. Thank you. Every camera we have is shaking right now. Here is tonya rivens in the first alert traffic center. Your first alert traffic is yes as we look at the camera 485 and brookshire and we have problems on the roads due to fallen trees and power lines. And we have accidents. An accident at brookshire boulevard at 485. It was not visible on the dot camera. Volume and Traffic Building headed away from center city on brookshire. Another accident it cleared out. At Mount Holly Huntersville road. And there is a problem here at close to brookshire we have a road closure as well due to a fallen tree between old plank road and brookshire boulevard. As we look on the mapping system you may notice a lot of red dots indicating a lot of activity on the roads at the moment. Your first alert traffic is sponsored by peoples bank. Back to you. Thank you. Turning now to our Firstalert Weather Team. Look at this when the storm hit louisiana last night it destroyed this golds gym in you see the side of the building exposed and the roof blew off as well. No working out there this morning. No, except hauling away sheets of metal. And we were watching michael clarks live report and commenting i hope the camera holds on. The storm is not over for to us. And outside of anything that may have been tornadic damage we have Straight Line damage from how powerful the winds are with the storm. Severe thunderstorm warnings have been allowed to expire. This is the tail end of the real potent more threatening line of storms that very tail southern fringe of it through northeastern parts of anson counties and far southeastern parts of richmond county. Severe thunderstorm warnings with that have been allowed to expire. And we have ongoing tornado and back to the west, through the bulk of our viewing area its quieter. Charlotte metro not picking up anything on the radar. We have tame light spotty showers into the mountains. This that came through was pretty much the main event on the far, again, backside of it, we had our two most recent tornado warnings within the past hour and this is the line that is going to continue to press east why the tornado watch in effect for a large chunk of North Carolina and virginia until 7 00 p. M. Since we are behind that point right now, our Severe Weather threat is diminishing. Since the storm system is so, so big. Look at all of the rain snow on the backside of this. You can see the circulation with the storm itself that is why we will have high winds through the night. A high wind warning is in effect in the dark tan until 7 00 p. M. And a wind advisory in the the winds themselves are not going to be calming down through the night. Wind will remain our threat Going Forward. We have again the flooding threat from the lingering rain that we saw so much of today. Current wind gusts are still 60mileperhour gusts reported in monroe. 40 in charlotte. And 31 in chesterfield, hickory. And morganton and 31 in statesville and 36 in salisbury. The gusts alone these are not again gusts as a result of a thunderstorm but the storm itself. Going forward wind the big story through the night. Futurecast clears out any lingering rain showers through midnight. And we have been talking about snow in the mountains. As the colder air is pulled in on the backside of this system we will have snow showers you can expect 24 inches of snow tomorrow afternoon. 3 00 thursday and we are seeing the snow showers outside of the mountains we are clear. And then as we head into friday, for you in the mountains, will see things dry out as well and start to quiet down for you. Going forward, mid50s for tomorrow. And then we see things get a little bit cooler as we head into friday and saturday with that colder air coming in. Those nights and mornings will drop down to below freezing again through the early part of the weekend. And back half of the weekend we start to warmup sunday. Sunny back to 64 and the middle part of next week it looks nice not only is it in the midto rain. Monday through wednesday are going to be warm, milder for us, mid60s and generally dry into the early to middle part of next week. Back over to you. Thank you. Concerns grow with the could be sexually transmitted. Pregnant woman whose a pregnant woman whose husband was diagnosed with zika now talking about concerns that the virus can be sexually transmitted. The cdc is investigating 14 possible cases in the u. S. That may have been spread through sex. Newlyweds were living in brazil zika and angelica was pregnant. Doctors told them to practice safe sex. The doctor suggests us to use protection. So the advice to abstain from sex or use condoms is giving to all pregnant women whose male partners have been to zika affected countries. The virus can stay in semen for 62 days. There is a lot we do not know about this. A lot more news ahead. A raleigh woman gains access to the personal information of a family from our area why it is another Blue Cross Blue Shield and our Firstalert Weather Team are tracking the storm and the damage its left behind. At 4 00. Lowes presents how to put your foot in your mouth. Man, wish my yard looked like yours. Hey, the grass is always greener on the other side of the. Sorry. Now get 20 off stagreen fertilizer, announcer wbtv on your side. Wbtv news starts right now. More images coming in from the storm. Two ramps and one lane of 277 closed because of trees down. We are on your side surveying the damage across our area. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for first at 4 00 im jamie boll. Im Kristen Miranda in for brigida mack today. Lets look at the video. I could not believe t the state says the two ramps and the up with lane on 277 will be closed until 6 00 p. M. Near freedom drive and south clarkson street that section there. No cars going by. And its sunny outside now for most of us but what a mess left behind from the storms today and the winds still gusting. This system is not over. Our Firstalert Weather Team is tracking what is next. Meteorologist Lyndsay Tapases joins us from the first alert weather center. Is it all done . Going to be the wind that will be the Biggest IssueGoing Forward through tonight. The Severe Weather threat is not completely done is nearly completely dope. Any tornado warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings pressed off to the east and that is where the bulk of the tornado watch is left. So its been dropped for our viewing area and that is because this is the line here. This is the very threatening active line that has produced tornado warnings for our area its taking the Severe Weather threat with it. Behind that, yes, we still do have showers through this evening. They are very much tamer. And not so much in the way of thunderstorms or severe thunderstorms. We still will have the showers with us through the evening. And look how big this large scale storm system is. This will take time before we are done feeling the effects of this. This is where the center of the low is. But the winds with this, a huge wind field around this storm. As the winds continue to come through it will start to tap into the colder air on the Northwest Side of the storm and bring it in our direction why the wind and mountain snow showers will be the next effects we will feel through tonight and into tomorrow. High wind warning in the brown there goes until 7 00 p. M. A wind advisory goes until midnight. We will see gusts that could from the efebruaries of the rain effects of the rain and the gusts will be impressive through the night. Do not let your guard down because it is not raining. We do not have severe storms. 40milesperhour in charlotte and gastonia, monroe is reporting a 60mileperhour wind gust. 46 in lancaster. 45 in salisbury. These are impressive. Now with the again colder air coming in we will feel the temperatures drop. And today was mild ahead of that storm system we have some of you in the low 70s. Temperatures will be coming down tonight into tomorrow will be cooler as well. Starting to cool off into the mountains. Forecast coming up. As you know we are getting damage reports across the wbtv viewing area. Video here from fort mill in york county where you can see