Effects linger after Charlotte area hammered with severe weather system

The weather has cleared in the Charlotte area and crews are cleaning up after heavy rain, a possible tornado, and wind moved through on Tuesday.

According to Catawba County officials, the storm ripped through a mobile home park in Claremont that left one person dead and two critically injured. On Wednesday, the National Weather Service will send out a team to determine if a tornado touched down in the area.

For students in the Charlotte region, students have begun returning to school today, many with two hour delays. Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Union, Gaston, Cabarrus, Iredell-Statesville and Caldwell opened back up with delayed openings due to flooding and power outages.

However, Catawba County Schools schools closed Wednesday due to storm damage in the area. The Rowan-Salisbury School System decided Wednesday morning to shift to remote learning.

"We understand how difficult it can be to make changes to your plans for the day at the last minute, but our top priority is to keep the students we serve and the people who work for RSS safe and well. We appreciate your patience and support of this priority," the district wrote.

For commuters, the heavy rains caused flooding and several accidents throughout the region. The North Carolina Department of Transportation said some roads remained closed Wednesday due to the storms.

Air travelers across the nation also were plagued by the storm and Charlotte Douglas International, one of the busiest, was also slowed by the weather. According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, 697 flights were delayed and 98 were canceled due to the storm.

Despite the improved conditions, many are still without power across the Carolinas. According to Duke Energy’s outage map there were over 39,000 customers without power in both North and South Carolina approaching midday. In Mecklenburg County, there were just over 6,000 without power.

Water and sewer systems were impacted across the region. In the largest spill, the city of Morganton said 560,000 gallons overflowed from its sewer system into Hunting Creek. Charlotte Water said there were three sewage spills in its system Tuesday, and the system treated almost three times its daily average amount of water.