With temperatures rising to the 90s, thousands of electricity customers remain without power this afternoon across northeast and central Pennsylvania because of a storm Monday night.
Severe thunderstorms blew through the region with heavy rain and high winds that mostly dropped trees onto power lines. That killed power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses, but local electricity utilities have restored power to many.
As of 3 p.m., almost 15,000 customers in 11 counties remained without power.
Emergency management agency directors said they did not have reports of widespread damage and no reports of injuries.
In Columbia County, Commissioner Dave Kovach said the storm mostly spared the county except for power outages.
“I know there was some damage up by Camp Lavigne, there were winds and there were trees knocked down,” Kovach said. “And it wasn't severe enough that we didn't get called out by our Emergency Management Office … The storm that went through Columbia County a couple of weeks ago had a lot more damage.”
Weather forecasters warned of a possible tornado in Sullivan County, but county emergency management director Joe Carpenter said that never materialized.
“It was bad there for about a period of 45 minutes to an hour,” Carpenter said. “I'd say from like 6:15 to 7 o'clock that line of storms that came through, created some damage around the county, lots of trees down. Power out ... Traffic highways were blocked in a couple of locations for a little bit. But first responders pretty quickly cleared that off.”
Several counties set up charging and cooling stations, including Tioga and Susquehanna. In Tioga, emergency management director Douglas Wicks reported damage to some homes from downed trees.
In Susquehanna, EMA director Scott Aylesworth said about a third of the county was without power right after the storm.
“There were a lot of trees and wires down, some roadways closed,” he said. “Your typical severe thunderstorm kind of stuff. But we don't have any reports of any structural damage to any buildings or anything or of any injuries.”
WVIA reporters Haley O'Brien, Tom Riese and Isabela Weiss contributed to this story.
