Aug. 3--A round of severe thunderstorms, the second in two weeks, ripped through the Winston-Salem area yesterday afternoon, knocking trees into power lines, starting several small fires and causing almost 12,000 power outages immediately after the storm.

Just after 11 p.m., power had been restored to all but 2,398 homes and business, according to Duke Energy Corp.'s Web site.

On Somerset Drive, off Stratford Road in southwest Winston-Salem, Carlos Martinez and his neighbor Jose Saltiel took charge of cleanup.

The two stood in the road and directed traffic around a tree that had fallen from Martinez's front yard across power lines and into the westbound lane.

Martinez said that he and his wife, Tana, were upstairs about 3, trying to put their 17-month-old son down for his afternoon nap, when the storm hit.

"My wife said, 'Look at the rain, it's just crazy,'" Martinez said. As Tana Martinez and their 6-year-old, Nico, stood at the upstairs window and Carlos Martinez sat on the bed with their toddler, the oak tree began swaying in the wind.

It careened toward the house, and Nico screamed. Then the tree fell the other way, toward the road and onto the power lines.

The family went to the basement, and a few minutes later Martinez ventured out to assess the damage. He set up a 'Slow, Children at Play' sign he had stored in the basement, and Pike Electric crews dropped off some orange safety cones.

"I'm not scared of storms," Martinez said. "But when the tree started falling toward the house -- at that point, yeah. At that point, we headed for the basement."

Two strong storms combined to hit the Triad region yesterday, the National Weather Service said. One blew in from Yadkin County and moved through northwestern Forsyth County and downtown Winston-Salem before heading to northeastern Davidson County and Thomasville.

The second storm started in the Rural Hall and Stanleyville area and moved southeast through Walkertown and Kernersville.

"We had just real warm, unstable air," said Darin Figurskey, the meteorologist-in-charge of the National Weather Service's forecast office in Raleigh.

The storms came in over the mountains late Friday and gathered force yesterday afternoon as they hit the warm air in the Triad, he said.

Strong storms and heavy rain were also reported in other parts of the region, including Surry County.

Authorities reported no serious injuries resulting from any of the storms.

However, tree and power-line damage was a different story -- especially in the neighborhoods along Stratford Road west of Hanes Mall Boulevard.

The Atwood Acres neighborhood sustained heavy damage yesterday, with nearly every street blocked by trees or downed lines.

Nancy York, who lives on Farmbrook Road, said she went down to the basement with her husband, Jay, when the storm struck.

"I heard something really loud -- a crack, and once the storm passed we went onto our back porch because you could see light," she said.

"Jay noticed people were having trouble getting through the street, and when we walked up we saw this," she said, pointing to a tree that had fallen across the road.

There were reports of downed trees and power lines across Winston-Salem and into Randolph and Davidson counties. Several trees hit power lines and caught on fire.

No more storms are expected this weekend, but some could develop Monday or Tuesday, Figurskey said.

He said that the main story for next week will be rising temperatures, as the heat builds on Tuesday and Wednesday and temperatures rise past the mid-90s.

Journal reporters Elizabeth DeOrnellas and Michelle Johnson and photographer Walt Unks contributed to this report.

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Story Source: Winston-Salem Journal