Winds leave residents in the dark

Strong winds downed lines and left hundreds in the Beaufort area without power early Monday morning.

Residents in downtown Beaufort, Shell Point, Port Royal, St. Helena Island, Burton and Lady's Island reported outages at various times during the night, said David Tempel, spokesman for South Carolina Electric and Gas.

The most widespread outages were reported in Burton and Shell Point.

Power was restored in about an hour in every case, Tempel said.

The National Weather Service recorded wind gusts in Beaufort of more than 30 mph Monday morning. Tempel said the wind was responsible for the outages.

While the wind kept utility companies busy, area authorities were hardly blown over with complaints about wind damage. Only the Burton Fire District responded to downed power lines.

At about 1:45 a.m., firefighters responded to reports of a power line down on Old Jericho Road, a district spokeswoman said.

The wind capped off a stormy weekend in Beaufort.

Sunday morning, thunderstorms left more than 500 Beaufort-area residents in the dark for about an hour.

Strong winds also were responsible for the cancellation of a Port Royal Performance Series event scheduled for Sunday night in downtown Port Royal.