Microburst rips through southeast Greensboro, leaves thousands without power

A fast-moving storm carved a tight band of damage through southeast Greensboro and McLeansville, knocking out electricity for as many as 4,000 customers and sending trees into streets and structures. It hit just after 3 p.m. on June 15, bringing blinding rain, strong winds and a concentrated path of destruction while much of Greensboro saw little or nothing.

The hardest-hit spots were clustered along E. Lee Street, Youngs Mill Road and in McLeansville just outside the Urban Loop. WFMY’s coverage showed the damage was not citywide, but instead focused on a small pocket where trees fell across roads and onto homes and at least one garage. For the people in that corridor, the storm quickly shifted from an ordinary summer afternoon to a cleanup and safety problem, with blocked travel routes and possible roof, vehicle and property damage.

Radar and the damage pattern pointed to a microburst or downburst rather than a tornado, which means the storm’s force came from straight-line winds instead of rotation. That distinction matters in Guilford County because severe thunderstorms can still tear up neighborhoods without producing the classic tornado signature. The storm’s footprint also underscored how uneven severe weather can be in the same city, with one section taking the brunt while nearby neighborhoods were spared.

The outage problem did not end with that first blast of wind. Later WFMY reporting showed more than 2,000 people in Greensboro without power on June 18 in a separate outage area stretching from East Market Street and East Bessemer Avenue past the Urban Loop toward North Buffalo Creek. Another Duke Energy outage map on June 20 showed more than 6,000 customers without power along the Guilford-Alamance county line, including the Gibsonville, McLeansville, Whitsett and Altamahaw areas.

Guilford County Emergency Management says its mission is to build a resilient and sustainable community through partnerships, and both Greensboro and Guilford County direct residents to emergency-alert systems that send public-safety messages by cell phone, text message, home phone and email through the Guilford Emergency Alert, Notification, and Information System, known as GEANI. County guidance also tells residents how to report downed trees blocking roadways and request non-emergency assistance, a reminder that wind damage in one neighborhood can become a wider public-safety issue in minutes.