Wind knocks tiles off iconic Pagoda
Iconic landmark sustains damage in Thursday storm
A storm that brought heavy rain and high winds to Berks County on Thursday left a trail of destruction on and around the historic Pagoda atop Mount Penn overlooking Reading.
Cindy Castner, the manager of public properties for the city, said Friday afternoon that strong gusts ripped off several of the signature red tiles from the roof of the structure. The evidence was on nearby Duryea Drive where pieces of the shattered tiles littered the pavement.
Castner said she wasn’t surprised.
“This is an ongoing problem,” she said. “We know that we need to replace many of those terra cotta tiles. It’s just not as easy as it sounds because there would be quite a bit involved in that process.”
Castner said members of the public works department cleaned up the mess early Friday morning. The good news, she said, is that there is no evidence of leaks into the interior of the building.
“So we’re only dealing with the exterior damage that we saw,” she said.
Sustained winds of 30 to 40 mph occurred for several hours Thursday with gusts topping 50 mph at times across Berks. MetEd reported about 4,100 customers had lost service at the peak of the winds on Thursday afternoon. That total was down to about 100 customer by Friday afternoon.
Rainfall totals across Berks were near an inch Thursday with a few locations seeing downpours making for higher totals, such as Hamburg, 1.68 inches; Schuylkill River at Berne, 1.40; Bernville, 1.38 Boyertown, 1.34; Mohrsville, 1.29; Oley, 1.27; and Windsor Township, 1.16.
The landmark dates to early last century.