Power to thousands still out

HUNLOCK TWP. – Brian Schwartz, 35, had to borrow his uncle’s generator Wednesday just to get power at his Sorbertown Hill Road home.

Like most in the Hunlock Creek area, his family had no water, no lights and no way to keep cool since Tuesday night’s massive thunderstorm.

About 3,000 UGI customers – most of whom live in the Hunlock Creek area – may be without power until Friday or Saturday because of the widespread damage, spokesman Keith Adams said.

It’s causing considerable discomfort for residents. The lucky ones had access to home generators.

“I couldn’t even get my garage open to get my chainsaw” to remove a fallen tree in his back yard, Schwartz said.

The high winds that accompanied the storms caused outages to about 19,000 customers in portions of Luzerne and Wyoming counties – 18,000 UGI customers among them, according to UGI spokesman Joe Rymar.

UGI restored service to about 10,000 customers Tuesday night, and crews were hard at work restoring power throughout Wednesday to the remaining 8,000 customers, mostly located in the Back Mountain and Shickshinny areas.

The magnitude of Tuesday’s storm has taken crews longer to fully restore power, Adams said.

In the Hunlock Creek area, there were 10 construction crews putting wires back in place on fallen poles. Another seven crews were removing downed trees throughout Wednesday evening.

No electricity meant no school for students in the Northwest Area School District on Wednesday in Union Township.

In the Lake-Lehman School District, Lehman-Jackson Elementary School stayed open, despite the lack of electricity. Principal Marilyn Glogowski said students had breakfast and were served bag lunches, and the classrooms all had ample natural lighting while large flashlights were put in the restrooms for students.

“It’s a little inconvenient,” Glogowski said, “But we’re doing fine.”

A 56-year-old sign at Garden Drive-In in Hunlock Creek was heavily damaged. The landmark theater is Luzerne County’s longest continuously operating drive-in.

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