South Jersey residents are assessing the damage and managing power outages after a rare and extremely intense line of severe thunderstorms packing hurricane force wind gusts barreled its way across the region just after midnight, causing nearly....Continue Reading
Fire Rescue News- Nearly 170,000 in South Jersey without power after powerful storms rake region
Fire rages at the Church of the Redeemer in Longport. A downed power line may have started the fire in the 104-year-old building.
Posted: Saturday, June 30, 2012 2:16 am | Updated: 9:53 am, Sat Jun 30, 2012.
170,000 power outages.
The storm also may be to blame for the death of a man after the boat he and his cousin were on capsized in Absecon Bay, the Coast Guard confirmed.
Saturday’s storm has left millions in the dark along the entire Mid-Atlantic Region and Atlantic County has issued a state of emergency requesting that residents stay off the roads so that emergency officials, road crews and utility workers can work on restoring power and clear debris.
The worst of the storm lasted up to, and in places exceeding, a half hour, according to Al Cope, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mt. Holly.
Cope said the wind damage was related to straight-line winds and not tornados.
Across the area trees were reported down, some landing on occupied houses or across major roadways.
As of 7:30 a.m., more than 96,000 Atlantic County customers had no power, according to the Atlantic City Electric website. The county only has 139,000 customers. Cape May County had more than 11,000 outages and Cumberland had more than 25,000 outages.
Among the hardest hit areas were Egg Harbor Township, Hamilton Township, Galloway Township, Egg Harbor City and the municipalities on Absecon Island.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Nick Ameen said that the Coast Guard received a call regarding a capsized vessel and a helicopter was dispatched to Absecon Bay near Brigantine. Officers rescued a man, but due to a language barrier, officers did not find out there was another man in the water for some time, Ameen said. Crews ultimately found that man, but he had since died.
More information on the incident will be released later today.
In Longport, an intense fire raged at the historic Church of the Redeemer, which is a 104-year-old building. Officials said that it appeared the wind knocked a power pole into the church’s tower, sparking the fire. By 3:30 a.m., crews from Atlantic City and Ventnor were on the scene assisting Longport and crews from Cape May County had been requested, said Atlantic County Fire Marshal Whitey Swartz.
The church’s services had just begun for the season, said Tom Subranni, the church’s chairman of the board and that the congregation hopes to have Sunday services in a small side yard.
Longport resident Jerome DiPencino said the rumbling of the thunder woke him up and then the wind. DiPencino stood on the front steps of the house across the street from the church, along with about a half dozen others, watching the fire burn.
“You always hear people say it sounds like a freight train and that’s what it sounded like,” DiPencino said of the wind. DiPencino said he knows a tree toppled in his yard and there was some damage to siding and roof shingles, but “compared to this, it’s nothing.”
Longport resident Suzy Lawler also came out to watch the fire from her house on 32nd Street. She said the transformer by her house blew. “I don’t think we will have power for days,” Lawler said of the region. “Not a good thing for the Fourth of July weekend, especially when you just loaded in for the weekend.”
The storm was a rare “mesoscale convective complex” that formed over Indiana Friday afternoon, moving across the eastern states at between 50 mph and 60 mph, Cope said. The forward speed of the storms also increased the wind speeds that were felt at the ground, he said.
“This one was unusually strong,” Cope said. “It’s pretty unusual to have this widespread damage.”
The storms were fueled by the extreme heat that has baked much of the east coast for a second day and came after a similar type of storm system blew through South Jersey early Friday morning.
Cope said it’s possible that forecasted extreme heat for this afternoon will fuel a third cell sometime Sunday morning.
Millions along the eastern seaboard, from southern Virginia to New Jersey were in the dark, the Associated Press reported. Among the hardest hit areas were the Washington DC metro area, which saw a high temperature of 104 Friday.
The power outages locally and throughout the region will be a problem due to another day of high heat and humidity expected. Temperatures inland today are forecast to reach 94 degrees and along the coast, 92 degrees, the National Weather Service said.
The weather service received reports of numerous sustained winds of more than 60 mph and a recorded wind gust in Tuckerton of 81 mph. Hail also was reported in Absecon and in other areas, the weather service said. A wind gust in Ventnor was recorded by the WeatherBug Network at 69 mph.
