STORM, WINDS BATTER PARTS OF MONTCO
Roads closed, thousands without power in aftermath
LANSDALE >> A Wednesday afternoon storm battered a swath of Montgomery County east of Lansdale, leaving thousands of residents without power more than a day later.
“Yesterday’s [storm] was particularly strong, and caused a lot more damage than your average thunderstorm that comes through,” said Todd Stieritz, public affairs coordinator for the Montgomery County Department of Public Safety on Thursday.
“Unfortunately, extensive wind damage was observed today in portions of Montgomery County,” the National Weather Service’s Mount Holly Office tweeted Wednesday. “The culprit was likely intense straightline winds, as you can see from this radar velocity loop. The blue colors indicate estimated radial velocities of 70-80+mph.”
Stieritz said that along with reports of hail and some flooding, “wind was the primary threat” from the storm.
“There was some flooding on some limited access highways including [Route] 309 and the [Pennsylvania] Turnpike, but those issues were more quickly resolved, and this didn’t turn out to be a huge water rescue event,” he said. “It was more of a downed power line and wind damage event.”
There were 1,728 calls for service into the county’s emergency communications center between
2 and 9 p.m. Wednesday, according to Stieritz. The highest volume came in between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. with 570 calls.
“At the height of the storm, there were numerous roads shut down … for trees, and power lines, and debris in the roadways,” he said. Route 73 in Whitemarsh Township between Butler Pike and Joshua Road remained closed Thursday morning due to the debris, he said.
Stieritz said that the county’s public safety department set up an emergency operations center and “deployed a number of generators to assist municipalities with traffic lights that were out.”
There were 50,000 PECO customers who lost power at the height of the storm, Stieritz said, adding that roughly 12,000 PECO customers were still without power as of 12:30 p.m. Thursday.
While a number of “municipalities [are] still assessing [the] damage,” Stieritz said public safety officials participated in a Thursday morning conference call with representatives from Abington, Cheltenham, East Norriton, Springfield, Whitemarsh, and Whitpain townships.
“There are a number of houses and commercial buildings in those municipalities that sustained damage,” Stieritz said. “There are a few throughout the county that are totally uninhabitable.”
“I think we were probably one of the worst townships hit by it,” said East Norriton Township Police Chief Brian Pasquale.
Pasquale noted a number of power outages as well as damaged homes and cars in the township. Closures continued Thursday afternoon on stretches of Whitehall and Mill roads.
In a shopping center off Germantown Pike in East Norriton, 6ABC reported an incident involving debris from a construction site of an Amazon distribution center being blown to the neighboring Weis Markets.
In nearby Whitpain Township, several roads were shut down as of Thursday morning. The Whitpain Township Police Department posted an update to Facebook around 5:15 a.m. that portions of nine roads were still considered impassable.
As a result of the storm, “the township declared a [storm] emergency” at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday.
“Multiple roads are closed throughout the township and over 70 percent of the township is without power due to the strong storm that moved through the area this afternoon,” the Whitpain Township Police Department said in a Facebook post Wednesday.
Police added that the roof of an office building, located on Union Meeting Road, “partially blew off during the storm.” However, the building’s occupants were safely evacuated, according to police.
Stieritz said Thursday crews were working to clear debris and restore power to the area.
“We’ve heard from PECO that they’re hoping to get most of it cleared up at some point later today or tonight, but there will still be some remaining outages over the next couple of days,” he said.