Western Main Line hit hard by winter storm Riley
RADNOR » March came in like the proverbial lion with a Nor’easter on Friday that hit the western Main Line area hard.
Clean up continued Monday from Friday’s storm as around 100 power outages that began on Friday were still lingering. The Radnor Township Building, meanwhile, was open all weekend for people to come and recharge their cell phones, warm up or even sleep over, officials said.
“Winter storm Riley certainly had Radnor squarely in its path of destruction,” said Lisa Borowski, township manager. “The Radnor Township staff, police, and fire departments have been amazing! We are truly grateful for all their hard work and professionalism.”
As of Monday afternoon, the power remained off at Borowski’s house and also in much of Ward 4. She was “hoping PECO is true to their most recent promise to have it back on by tonight.”
Power also remained out in much of Ward 2, said Commissioner Richard Booker.
“We are fortunate enough to have three fireplaces, two gas and one wood burning, and have been running them non-stop,” said his wife, Pattie Booker, a school board member. “My house smells like a cabin in the Pocono Mountains but at least there is enough heat to keep the first floor around 50 degrees or so.”
The family used power from the Bolingbroke mansion behind their house, which did not lose power. She also brought electronics and charges to work on Monday to fire them up “in case things drag out longer.”
She is also “perplexed at the lack of PECO trucks, or any electric contractors, for so long.” She saw the first one at 2 p.m. Sunday afternoon in Conshohocken.
“Their mobile app does a good job of showing the outages and predictions of when it will be restored but it doesn’t explain what the strategy is and when we don’t have power four days later,” she said. “My husband is fit to be tied; I am just going with the flow and trying to keep the food cold and the water in the pipes moving.”
Radnor Township School District schools were closed Monday due to a lack of power, as well.
Township public service workers were out and about clearing trees, if those trees were not tangled in wires. Officials warned that all downed wires should be considered live and dangerous.
“We have not opened our Emergency Operations Center formally but our EOC Coordinator Sgt. George Smith has been coordinating activities and has been working alongside of the police and public works departments in coordination of clean-up efforts, emergency communications, relaying information to PECO in regard to down power lines and awaiting their response,” said Radnor Township Manager Robert Zienkowski. “George has also been in contact with the county’s EOC and coordinating with them on an as needed basis as well as keeping other departments updated on needed resources. Deputy Superintendent Chris Flanagan has done an outstanding job on the Police/Township side managing the Township’s safety services response and Steve McNelis and Mark Domenick have done a tremendous job with the management of the Public Works staff and the maintenance of the roads, removal of trees and limbs from roads, getting traffic signals back up and running, creek and sewer back-ups and now, picking up limbs from yards of residents that are curbside from the storm. I am very proud of the staff’s efforts and have done an outstanding job. I can’t say enough about them.”
He added, “It was a pretty bad storm for tree damage in which it brought a lot of power lines down. My disappointment is with PECO and how slow the response has been with the restoration of power for our residents. Now we have another storm on the way for the Wednesday which may bring as much snow and cause the same type power outages.” As for winter storm Riley, “it does appear that we were one of the hardest hit areas in Delaware County,” said Zienkowski.
In Tredyffrin, the public works department had removed 44 fallen trees by Monday. Several streets were still closed on Monday morning and some 863 customers remained without power. Township officials were assessing damage, including damage to the parks, according to William Martin, township manager.
“We were hit pretty good with power outages,” said Dan Fox, Easttown Township manager on Monday afternoon. “PECO reduced the number constantly through the weekend and currently we have a couple of small pockets remaining.”