Granny Squirrel – A cold, ferocious storm brought rain and high winds throughout Cherokee County starting Thursday, knocking out power to hundreds of customers and destroying a storage facility off of U.S. 19/74 on Saturday.
Yet, even as the wind howled from that storm, county residents had their eyes fixed on the next one, this one spawned by frigid polar air that started bringing snow and sleet to Cherokee County by Monday afternoon.
Power to hundreds of customers in the Andrews area was knocked out for about 20 hours starting Friday morning, according to Duke Energy. The outage originated in an area near Granny Squirrel, where falling limbs damaged electrical equipment leading to the outage.
Powerful winds in that area also toppled a metal, multi-unit storage building operated by Rhodo Mini Storage off U.S. 19/74.
High winds tore the metal building from its footing, causing it to role over and come to rest on its roof just a few feet from the highway. Stored belongings from about a dozen units remained in place and exposed to the weather.
A privately owned storage shed was also destroyed, and the sign at the Granny Squirrel convenience center was damaged at the same time.