Storms are on the way out of the mountains but many power outages remain.

This morning, there were about 43,000 Duke Energy customers in the dark, but crews are continuing to make progress with repairs.

In Buncombe County, there are more than 9,000 customers still without power.

For Henderson County, there are currently more than 5,000 outages.

Over in Transylvania County there are more than 7,000 customers still without power and in Haywood County there are around 4,000 customers still in the dark.

Storms like this can be a challenge for Duke Energy because it passes through their entire service areas in the Carolina's, but crews have been prepared to quickly react.

The company has kept crews local in their communities, ready to respond.

As of 5am Sunday, rain totals peaked the highest in areas like Robbinsville and Highlands.

Robbinsville had 1.78" and Highlands had 1.67".

Wind gusts peaked the highest at Grandfather Mountain, with gusts up to 84mph.

Gusts were also high in Downtown Asheville at 65mph, and 59mph at the Asheville Airport.

There have also been reports of wind damage, with several trees reported down in McDowell County, especially south of I-40.

Other reports show trees down in Northern Cherokee County, involving a home in the Whittier area.

There have been 223 storm reports in the last 24 hours.

If you have an outage to report you can text OUT to 57801 or call the automated outage-reporting system at 800-769-3766.

 

STORY & PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC 13 WLOSHigh winds and heavy rain cause widespread outages, Duke Energy crews working to restore