Storms wreak havoc across Eastern US
2011-05-28 10:48
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Montpelier - Violent weather swept across the
Eastern seaboard overnight, dropping heavy rains that flooded towns from New
England to Georgia, knocking out power and killing at least three people in the
Atlanta area.
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.
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 145km/h and travelled 200m, 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 on Friday were in the
Binghamton area.
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.
- AP
