Perilous
Times and Climate Change
Severe storms cause flooding, topple trees, knock out power
across Eastern US
By John Curran, The Associated Press | The Canadian Press – Fri,
27 May, 2011
MONTPELIER, Vt. - 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 90 mph (145
kph) and travelled 200 yards (200 metres), 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.
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.