Michael Holstine
Contributing Writer
The original, major storm came through early yesterday morning starting about 3:15 a.m. with another major cell about 5:30 – 6 a.m., with tremendous lightning, thunder and rain.
As I prepared for work I showered with one eye on the flickering lights, hoping that I got rinsed before the power went off. Although I didn’t have any damaged trees on my property, this storm apparently contained severe straight-line winds, although the results were nothing short of tornado-like.
The most severe winds hit in a line from just north of FrostMore Farms near the old New Hope Church on Route 92. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 trees, most of them larger than 24 inches in diameter, fell across Rt. 92 taking down fences, telephone lines, damaging guardrails, and completely blocking the road. The winds continued through Dunmore and removed the tops of trees all the way to the intersection of Rts. 92 and 28. Trees were uprooted through the entire path, many of them in the yards of residents and some narrowly missing houses.
The last of the large broken trees was about halfway through the Dunmore straight heading north toward Green Bank.
I met Nathan Sharp traveling up Hill Road. He informed me that there was no way to travel north on Rt. 92 due to the damage, and we both headed toward the high school and Rt. 28.
The winds also claimed some large trees on Route 28 from south of the Dilley’s Mill Boy Scout Camp to Dunmore, partially blocking the road at various points along this path. However the devastation was nowhere near as severe as that on Rt. 92, and that section of road was opened up fairly quickly.
By afternoon/evening, the rains had caused most small creeks and drainage areas to fill and run out of their banks. While ponding water was noted in the Green Bank area, flooding of the streams was rare. However, further south on Rt. 92 the streams breached their banks and flowed over the roadway in several spots. Wherever a stream normally flowed through a culvert under the highway it was now flowing full, spreading through the neighboring property and over the road, sometimes as deep as 12 inches and with intense speed.
Most of the tributaries to Sugar Camp Run flooded the banks.
At Hill Road the higher in elevation I traveled the more water was running down the road, which was very strange.
Michael Mountain must have received a great deal of rain to contribute to this runoff. There was so much water flowing so quickly in long stretches of roadway that I was concerned that the road may not have been there at all, and I could make out geysers of water shooting up in front of blocked culverts and off of large rocks in the road.
This morning [Friday] there was still water running across sections of Hill Road and both ditch lines were running swift and full.
Where water had receded off the road there were large rocks and tons of gravel covering the road, deposited by the water as it had made its cuts through the ditch lines.