Thunderstorm that slams into area Saturday leaves many without power
A powerful thunderstorm that barreled through the Pittsburgh region Saturday afternoon left many Washington County residents without power well into Sunday.
That meant many homes and apartments were deprived of air conditioning as the temperatures hovered around 90 on Sunday.
Helen Bollinger, a resident of Oakbrooke Estates in Cecil Township, said she and her family left their house and went to stay with family nearby as the power outage dragged on. She said their food was starting to go bad, and they were concerned about meat being stored in a deep freezer.
“We couldn’t stay in the heat with our dogs and kids, so we left,” Bollinger said.
All told, about 4,200 West Penn Power customers were without power in Washington County Sunday afternoon, according to Mark Nitowski, a spokesman for the utility. That accounted for almost half of the 7,800 customers without power in the Pittsburgh metro area. In the storm’s immediate aftermath, about 40,000 customers lost power across the region. In Washington County, the customers without power were heavily concentrated in Cecil, Chartiers, North Strabane and Peters townships and Canonsburg.
Outages were more scattered in Greene and Fayette counties.
“This was a violent storm that caused widespread damage,” Nitowski said. West Penn Power called in crews from the central part of the state and as far away as Philadelphia to assist with the clean-up.
According to Jenna Lake, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Moon Township, a wind speed of 64 MPH was clocked at West Alexander on Washington County’s western edge during the storm.
Aside from knocking out power and downing trees, the storm also caused a tent to fall over at a Washington County Bar Foundation fundraising event at the home of Ed Morascyzk outside Washington. However, it worked out for the best in his estimation.
“Actually, it was perfect,” Morascyzk explained. “Three hours later, the humidity was gone, and there wasn’t any tent to block the sunshine for the garden party.”