Severe storms wreak havoc from Vermont to Georgia
MONTPELIER, VT
Intense thunderstorms stalled over central Vermont, pushing
rivers over their banks and ripping up streets. About 200 people
were forced from their homes.
Churning brown water from the rising Winooski River and a
tributary flooded into the streets of Vermont's capital city,
Montpelier, sending business owners with inundated basements
scurrying to move merchandise to higher ground.
"It looked like the river was right there on my porch," said
Darlene Colby, 47, who was woken up by police around 1 a.m. She
gathered a bag for belongings for herself and 25-year-old son and
spent the rest of the night at a shelter.
School was canceled for the day in Montpelier and a number of
other communities in central Vermont, and state workers were given
a delayed opening.
Plainfield, just east of the capital city of Montpelier, got
5.22 inches of rain, St. Johnsbury got 4.74 inches, and Montpelier
got 3.89 inches, the National Weather Service said.
There was also flash-flooding in parts of northern New
Hampshire, with some homes evacuated in the Littleton area and a
few roads washed out.
In eastern Pennsylvania, a tornado that touched down Thursday in
Schuylkill County was the second twister to hit the area this week,
the National Weather Service said.
Another tornado hit Franklin County in south-central
Pennsylvania. The weather service said the twister had top winds of
90 mph and traveled 200 yards, but no one was injured.
A third twister, also an EF-1, hit Crawford County, bringing
down trees and wires and damaging about 10 buildings north of
Springboro, county emergency officials told the Erie Times-News.
In the western Pennsylvania town of Seward, high winds toppled a
circus tent, injuring five people, including three children.
About 120,000 customers of PPL Electric Utilities lost power
across the state. Power was restored to about 72,000 by Friday
evening, but the company said the hardest-hit areas might not see
electricity until Sunday.
In eastern New York, about 65,000 utility customers lacked
power. Most of the New York outages Friday were in the Binghamton
area.
Toppled trees and flooded roads were reported Thursday in the
Lake Champlain community of Willsboro, and a lightning strike was
blamed for setting a home on fire Thursday evening. No one was
injured.
In Georgia, two Decatur women were killed in Atlanta when a tree
fell on a truck, police said. Atlanta station WSB-TV reported that
a 19-year-old man was killed in Mableton when a tree fell on him
while he cleared debris from a driveway.
Power was knocked out to more than 200,000 customers statewide,
utilities said. High winds toppled trees in the Macon and Columbus
areas. A flash flood warning was issued for portions of Fulton and
DeKalb counties in the Atlanta area.
The storms delayed flights leaving Atlanta, home to one of the
world's busiest airports, for more than two hours.
