The severe thunderstorm that rolled through the county Thursday night left several downed trees, a few downed power lines and even several lightning strikes to houses in Rowan County.

A tree came down all the way across Old Beatty Ford Road in Rockwell just west of Mason Hill Drive about 8:30 p.m. Initially firefighters thought a car might have hit the tree, but a vehicle apparently simply had a brush with one of the limbs, and no one was injured. The tree did bring down the power and cable lines, so Duke Energy and Spectrum had to be called out. The roadway was closed for a time between Roy Cline and Phaniel Church roads.

Three different houses reportedly were also hit by lightning, two within a few lots of one another in the 3000 block of Daugherty Road and one on Berrybeth Circle, all in China Grove.

The National Weather Service in Greenville-Spartanburg, which manages alerts for this area, sent out an alert of a severe thunderstorm heading toward Rowan and the surrounding area at 7:14 p.m. Thursday. The warning noted the major threats were high winds and some hail. Residents in Kannapolis reported moving their cars under cover when possible when the hail started, and the wind gusts reportedly reached up to 60 mph.

Oddly enough, the weather service noted that breaks of sunshine on Thursday contributed to the instability, increasing the chance of pop-up thunderstorms.