Storm left New Bern mostly unscathed, city manager says

New Bern has few scars to show from its encounter with tropical storm Hanna, City Manager Bill Hartman said this morning.

"It looks like we've managed to weather the storm," he said.

He and Public Works Director Danny Meadows are riding around in a truck surveying the effects of  Hanna, but so far, they have  found little damage.

"There's a lot of little trashy stuff out on the road, but we haven't seen anything major," Hartman said. "We might have one contract crew out here cleaning today, but most of this looks like it will be fine until Monday."

Meteorologists have reported wind gusts of up to 48 mph in New Bern, but overall, the winds have been manageable.

The construction barrels on Broad Street have stayed in place.

"Danny said they were weighted down pretty good, so it would take more wind than we got to move them," Hartman said.

There have been a few scattered power outages in areas served by city electricity.

Some customers in Sellhorn Heights and Taberna lost power, as did those on Simmons Street and Madame Moore's Lane. About 5,000 customers briefly lost power.

"We had a couple of feeders out for about an hour, but with the weather being what it was, crews were able to work through it and restore power pretty quickly," Hartman said.

He said city officials are looking forward to "a pretty normal day."

The city's emergency operations center has been shut down and a meeting of city department heads that had been scheduled for noon today may be canceled, Hartman said.

"We were going to talk about our plans for what we needed to do to clean up after the storm, but there just doesn't appear to be much to talk about," he said. "We still have people out looking for big stuff to pick up or take care of, but we think this thing will be out of here pretty soon. We think the worst is past."

Nikie Mayo can be reached at (252) 635-5665 or nmayo@freedomenc.com.