CARTHAGE, N.C. — In the aftermath of the winter storm, thousands of people are still without power in North Carolina. Duke Energy crews and contractors worked Monday to restore power in Moore County, which was one of the hardest-hit power outage areas in the state.

What You Need To Know

Duke Energy says thousands remained without power in Moore County as of Tuesday morning

Tommy Phillips is a resident of Carthage who used his motor home to keep warm during the night

He and his wife camped out on their driveway as they waited for the power to be restored, which took nearly 30 hours

Tommy Phillips, a resident in Carthage, lost power around noon Sunday. He found a unique way to keep warm during the night.

“I have an open house, and so it can’t heat the room very well,” Phillips said. “I realized that Duke Power wasn’t gonna get to us. They didn’t have a time that they were gonna be able to get to us, so I decided I’d pull up my motor home down from the barn up there, and backed in, fired up my generator.”

While his house remained cold and dark, the camper was warmed up in about 20 minutes.

“We were able to cook supper in there. And so from there on, we were in good shape.”

Phillips and his wife, Nancy, have used their motor home before when traveling to the Western U.S. But, this is the first time they’ve camped in their driveway.

On Monday morning, Duke Energy reported over 40,000 customers were without power across the state, and 13,000 of those were in Moore County. Duke Energy response workers spent the day working on power restoration.

“When you live out in the country, you know you expect to be last,” Phillips said. “You don’t expect to be first. They’re going to get to the towns where there’s more people. And that’s the right thing to do.”

According to the latest U.S. Census data, Carthage has a population of around 2,700 people.

After nearly 30 hours, the power finally returned to the Phillips’ house.

While he and his wife are grateful to be back inside their house, they were prepared to sleep in their camper for another night. Phillips had enough gas to stay in the motor home for three or four days. He had even extended an invitation to his neighbors.

“This actually is large enough. I told my neighbor if they couldn’t get heat they can come on down here. We can sleep six people in here.”

Duke Energy is hoping to have power restored for all of its customers in North Carolina by Tuesday night.