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Utility crews worked late into Sunday to restore power to western North Carolina residents and businesses that lost electricity due to freezing rain and sleet this weekend.

Duke Energy and electric cooperatives reported about 63,000 customers still were without power early Sunday evening. The most outages were in Forsyth, Stokes and Rockingham counties in the northwest Piedmont and foothills and in Henderson County in the central mountains.

Gov. Roy Cooper declared a state of emergency to help accelerate power restoration by waiving certain truck restrictions on roads so that vehicles could gain access easier to areas where power lines fell due to freezing rain, ice and weighed-down trees.

The National Weather Service reported close to a half-inch of ice in some sections of western North Carolina. The remainder of the state received mostly a cold rain or freezing precipitation that caused few problems.

The winter weather is part of a weekend storm that brought several inches of snow to Virginia and Maryland.

Topics North Carolina