It is and the house in the background to scale how large that tree is. Folks coming up to look at it. I talked to the crew at the scene and no damage to houses. But several branches and sticks all over the sidewalk. And traffic is getting by. But police are on scene. Those large trees part of the reason why we have had outages in the area. Look at the outage map this is the latest right now. I checked 18,000 people in our area are affected by outages. That number has continued to rise over the past 30 minutes. We will keep tracking that and looking for more images. Those Duke Energy Crews have a long night ahead of them. The storm raced across the foothills and trees ended up in homes. Thousands of people do not have power. Wbtvs Steve Ohnesorge was in the middle of the storm and his story new for you at 5 00 p. M. It did not last long, did not in just minutes some roadways were covered with water. This part of the storm raced through quickly. Check out the line between dark clouds and blue skies. But the wind was still gusting. Bad enough that investigators trying to find the cause of mondays big fire in hildebrand got out of the charred building would not go back in. Afraid walls could fall. Its not worth putting somebodys life in jeopardy. The wind did push trees down in the area. This one on 40 in burke county. This is the fourth tree we have had come down in 10 manipulates. Just an inconvenience but in longview it was more. Chelsea was inside her home when a huge oak tree came crashing in. It was just sudden. She heard the wind and then the crash. The roof started caving in. Chelsea was in the kitchen no time to run for cover. There was no running or identify hiding or getting away. But the house is destroyed. Many are hoping this is not an omen of weather to come. Its very much like march weather and march is only a couple days away. Who knows what were going to get then. Meanwhile, a lot of work still underway to clean up from todays storm. Lots of trees are down. Folks without power. The long night ahead for many. In catawba county, Steve Ohnesorge wbtv on your side. Thank you. North of Charlotte Rowan county had two rounds of Severe Weather today and left a lot of damage and power outages. David whisenant has been traveling the county today. And he got to a new location seeing some damage up close and personal. Where are you . Jamie, i am in white oak acres off 85 and web road in rowan county. Happened. This tree came tumbling down and inside they were in a room that is right under where the tree came down. They were not hurt. It did knock pictures off the wall and put cracks in the ceiling. And the owner of the home is an avid hunter and has deer heads on the wall couple fell down. And this is the most recent example of damage and more when a storm came through at 1 00 p. M. This huge tree came tumble belling down on long ferry road pulling downpour poles and a mess of lines. It knocked out power to a large part of spencer including the restaurant. We were in the middle of lunch and the power went out and customers in here. But everything is ok. And we are cleaning up. Schools, homes, Shopping Centers all lost power. 2000 according to duke energy including here at the sunshine store. Grocery items and i had about three customers in here when i lost power. Strong winds broke this power pole in a neighborhood off keen road. The top was burning. The transformer dangling in the air and the broken piece burning. Firefighters told the family to stay put until duke energy arrived. Down highway 29 firefighters to deal with a burning transformer plant. In west rowan a downpour hit during the lunchhour. And that same storm then rolled through salisbury creating ponds on streets. And back in spencer where the residents seem to have gotten the worst of it they are patiently waiting for the lights to come back on. They said it would be around 6 00 p. M. Before it came back on. And again, this just about less than 90 minutes ago on brookfield circle in rowan county. And we have posted a slide show of your pictures on our website. Check out the damage go to wbtv. Com. Right now lets get you updated on traffic and the commute here is tonya rivens in the first alert traffic center. Your first alert traffic is sponsored by peoples bank. And as we check in on i85 and statesville, a the of volume we see the camera jumping. And the story remains the same as far as accidents in the area but also a lot of areas with obstructions on the roadway. There is an accident at north tryon and another at north tryon and west craig head and a lot of volume on north tryon. And we have obstructions by mathison and the plaza. As we look around the area and see that volume on north tryon. Graham street is a great alternate route. And we have a couple accidents headed towards 485 by w. T. Harris and another on north tryon near Mallard Creek church be careful. Back to you. Thank you. Theft is alarming detectives. The video is coming up in crimestoppers. And more good news for a dog shot 18 times with a bb gun in rock hill. And areas are under a high wind warning. Look at the damage its causing this is from salisbury when the coming up for you in new information tonight on a puppy many of you have fallen in love with. This is brody. He was shot 18 times with a bb gun. We are keeping in contact with ebenezer Animal Hospital to see how he is doing. Today he has been adopted by a they want to remain anonymous but tell us they are excited to take care of brody. And a confirmed case of rabies in caldwell county. A dog killed a racoon and the dog was not vaccinated. And its been turned over to the shelter and has been euthanized. Coming up a growing problem for detectives who are trying to protect you and your identity. First here is Lyndsay Tapases. The rain moved out for us. And the clouds break in someplaces but the wind is going to be an issue through the night and tomorrow. First alert forecast coming u take a look at this picture from uptown. Not too often do you see this. That is beautiful. Its almost like you are looking down at the rainbow. Lyndsay tapases is putting the finishing touches on the forecast and only a couple minutes away. Credit card fraud is a growing crime and a plague challenging charlottemecklenburg police. An uphill fight and investigators are hoping you can help them. Paul cameron has exclusive video in tonights crimestoppers. James mu, you said this is bogging down police. Half the emails they receive are about stolen credit. And tonight my crimestoppers report there is a new credit card scam that has investigators very concerned. It is the new fraud the new way of making money. The detective is talking about crooks who clone credit cards. What they do is take a card and then put all the victims information. You know the victims information on the card and it can be a regular credit card or a gift card. A bearded man carrying a package he bought walks into the under armour. And goes to the counter and pays by credit card. But the information on that piece of plastic is not his. Police cannot say how he stole the account number from his victim. There are many ways. They only know the victim spotted purchases he did not make. What is more, the victim had his credit cards in his possession at the time of those purchases. The crook was using a cloned card interest the guy in the video he went and bought like more gift cards. And gift cards do not need an id. This man and another wracked up 1100 worth of cloned card purchases from the same victim. But what really worries detectives these are far from you are saying there are groups of people who travel from town to town and do this . Definitely. But these are locals . I hope so. We are hoping somebody can identify them. Its huge half are emails each day are from credit card thefts. The lesson is to make sure you keep an eye on your accounts and switch to credit cards that use the chip because those are tougher to clone. If you have recognized that bearded man call crimestoppers. There is a reward available. A tip from last weeks story helped solve a 20,000 mystery. This man Police Identified him, i showed you he stole 20,000 worth of ipads and laptops from a Hotel Conference room. Warrants are issued for the man and the other man we dont know who he is. But they had inside help one person working for the hotel was police are looking to arrest the thief who they just identified. Back to the studio. Paul, thank you. Todays storm moved through quickly and we are seeing images from you. This is a timelapse video from south end. You saw it there. Cloudy and then rain moves through very quickly incredible pictures. Lots of this stuff today. Sadly this stuff left damage behind as well. This is the large scale storm system the parent that was responsible incontradictly for the Severe Weather that we saw. So we are going to see the winds around that. Not only keep things gusty locally through the night but it air. You can see that cold air being side of the low which is why in the mountains this will changeover to snow for you during the overnight and into tomorrow. And for the rest of us, some of us are hanging on to the bit of warmth ahead of the cold front. We will start to feel our temperatures drop tonight and tomorrow. The active watches that we have in place, tornado watch is for our east. High wind warning in brown and the advisory in tan which goes until midnight. Through the night and tomorrow as well those gusts are going to stay up around 50milesperhour or so. This is the main line of severe storms that came through today what spawned the severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for us. Since its towards raleigh that is where the Severe Weather threat is now. And it will continue to push east through the rest of the night. And the wind damage reports that we had from the day, so far none of this has been tornadic wind these are the red tornado reports and none are for our viewing area. Right now, it looks like most of the wind damage was from just Straight Line winds. We have things gusty out there right now. Monroe. Charlotte 43. 40 in rock hill and salisbury. 38 in hickory. 36 in gastonia. And these really dont let up even through the night and through most of the afternoon tomorrow we will be again pulling gusts 4050milesperhour. Especially into the mountains. Here is what things look like rain wise lingering showers taper off and the mountains it changes over to snow for you. And those mountain snow showers tomorrow. Upper right hand corner this is the time stamp tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening its not until late tomorrow night that the snow showers shutoff for the high country and that is why you could pick up between 35 inches through late tomorrow night and friday morning. For the rest of us, we are clearing things out. Tomorrow is still very, very windy during the day. Then the wind relaxes into friday. We are in the low 50s. 50s take us through the start of the weekend and we have the back half of the weekend back into the 60s. Warming things up. Dry through the stretch. Early to middle part of next week nice. Mid60s and dry next monday through wednesday. An update on the commute once again with tonya rivens. Thank you. And your first alert traffic is sponsored by peoples bank. Lets check i77 and trade volume. We have an accident not on i77 its on trade. By i77. So that may be contributing to some of that backup northbound i77. Another accident with us at ashley road and tuckaseegee. Keep in mind throughout the evening a lot of areas with obstructions on the roadways. One north hoskins road and the secondary roads. Activity on the roads. And update on the closure the fallen power cables at wilkinson boulevard westbound that is going to remain closed at least until 9 00 p. M. Still a lot of activity on the roads back to you. Mess in places. Thank you. Next, donald trump is on a roll after winning another caucus. And why his competition says they believe they can still take him down and win the nomination. And new at 6 00 Live Team Coverage on the aftermath of the storm and one family their close call with a fallen tree. On wbtv news is sponsored by. Donald trump is on a roll after the win in nevada. But his challengers say the race is just heating up and they are the ones that can stop the billionaire businessman. Kristen miranda has the latest on campaign 2016. We had a very exciting evening last night. Coming off a dominating win in nevada a confident donald speculating about his pick for vicepresident. I do want somebody that is political because i want to get lots of great legislation that we want passed that is sitting there including proper healthcare. Trump received his first endorsement from republican congressman Chris Collins of new york who said that he wants to shake up the washington status quo. Marco rubio who came in second place brushed off trumps victory. Its posh to important to take a deep breath. Its 1200 delegates and we are not near that number. Trump won 81 delegates with rubio and cruz at 17 but super tuesday has 595 delegates at stake. Ted cruz is hoping to carry his home state. He lost support from texas governor. Im asking my fellow texans to join me in supporting a true fighter for liberty. Be here with the governor of texas to be standing together saying we got six days, six days to lead in texas to lead the country. So lets get to work. The next g. O. P. Debate is set for thursday night in houston. Kristen miranda wbtv on your side. We have breaking news out of burke county. The old hildebrand school that burned on monday there were dramatic photos of the fire its been determined that the building is too unstable for an indepth investigation as far as now. Firefighters say the investigation will continue. But we have been trying to figure out if it was arson or how the fire started, electrical wires what was the cause and now it is undetermined. Powerful winds causing problems tonight. And we have Team Coverage and 6 00. Announcer wbtv on your side. Wbtv news starts right now. Now, at 6 00 powerful storms ripped through the charlotte area. Tonight trees and power lines are down. Some homes destroyed. We have the best Team Coverage showing you the aftermath and a close call during the height of the storm. Im just glad she was not putting her daughter in the car when the tree came down. This is just some of the damage we are seeing in charlotte and the surrounding areas. And after todays wild weather we are tracking more changes for your weather forecast. Good evening im paul cameron. Im maureen oboyle. Good to have you here at 6 00 p. M. Strong gusts of wind a threat tonight this is a live picture from queens road where this large tree fell late this afternoon. People are coming out to look at it. Incredibly large. On the scene. They are working right now to get this out of the roadway in myers park. And we have reporters showing you the damage and the cleanup tonight. Lets begin with chief meterologist, eric thomas who is in the first alert weather center. I have to tell you this storm system is wound up like a tight spring. Look at the size and the wind field around it is very powerful and that is why the tornado watch getting canceled and all shifted to the east we are going to watch the windwhipped showers working back into the picture and i can show you what we have had. Now, over about the last 60 minutes is new wind damage reports reports that you see the dots here in rowan county, that one expired because it was 60 minutes old. But more trees down in rowan county. More wind damage in lawrence. And a lot of this is going to turn backup into the piedmont of north and south carolina. That is why the high wind warning will remain until 7 00 north and south carolina. We could be talking about gusts 4050 or stronger in the area. And Lyndsay Tapases right now has much more on those details. Several more hours ahead of the high winds which is the reap for the warning and the wind advisory. These are the current gusts. We have spots pulling over 40mileperhour gusts. And now we will transition a forecast wind gust. Your time stamp up above my head. Forward through tonight we are right in the middle of the night pulling 3040mileperhour wind gusts and in the mountains higher than 50. And tomorrow morning and afternoon here we are now at thursday morning we have not seen them back off much at all. And into thursday evening as well. Finally we are starting to see a little bit of a improvement by 6 00 p. M. Tomorrow. That is why we remain under the warning and the concern for