Chapel Hill: E. Franklin Street Reopened After Lengthy Closure from Fallen Tree, Power Lines

UPDATE: The Town of Chapel Hill reopened East Franklin Street at its intersection with Elliott Road around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. The local government said cleanup crews are still working in the area of North Elliott Road, which does remain closed in both directions in front of Chapel Hill Fire Station 3. 

Duke Energy reported most of the remaining customers without power had also seen their service restored by 3 p.m.

A fallen tree in Chapel Hill knocked out power for hundreds of customers late on Tuesday night, with repair and clearance efforts still ongoing into Wednesday.

Photo via Mary Huff.

An alert from the town government notified residents about a tree down around 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday, with no injuries reported from its fall. It did, however, taken down power lines with it and Duke Energy arrived overnight to work on repairs. According to Duke Energy’s outage map, around 800 customers were affected, stretching from East Franklin Street’s merger with 15-501 to downtown Chapel Hill.

A screenshot of Duke Energy’s power outage map showing the outage in Chapel Hill Wednesday morning.

At 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday, Duke Energy had the estimated time of restoration for the area listed as 12 p.m.

As of Wednesday morning, East Franklin Street remained closed at Elliott Road and traffic signals were out along East Franklin between the Eastgate Crossing shopping center and Hillsborough Street. The town said it is working to use generator power to temporarily restore traffic signals at busy intersections. Chapel Hill reminded travelers, however, to treat any intersections without power as a four-way stop, with each vehicle moving through the intersection in the order they stopped.

Town staff encouraged community members to detour the area using Fordham Boulevard to Highway 54 until repairs and clearance is finished.

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