Crews are seen Tuesday installing new utility poles and lines that were damaged along South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre a day earlier when a severe storm blew through the area.
                                 Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

Crews are seen Tuesday installing new utility poles and lines that were damaged along South Main Street in Wilkes-Barre a day earlier when a severe storm blew through the area.

Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
<p>A crane lifts the remains of a huge oak tree into a dump truck Tuesday after it fell on power lines along Gibson Avenue in Kingston when a severe storm whipped through the Wyoming Valley a day earlier.</p>
                                 <p>Jerry Lynott | Times Leader</p>

A crane lifts the remains of a huge oak tree into a dump truck Tuesday after it fell on power lines along Gibson Avenue in Kingston when a severe storm whipped through the Wyoming Valley a day earlier.

Jerry Lynott | Times Leader

To John Hall the storm that blew past his garage on South Main Street Monday afternoon was no ordinary cloudburst.

Hall and his brother Mike lost power around 3:15 p.m after the wind pulled down the first wooden utility pole and created a chain reaction, felling a string of them and taking down the electrical, phone and cable lines.

From what Hall saw and heard he leaned more toward a tornado than a downdraft during the thunderstorm.

“We’re not weather people. We fix cars,” Hall said.

Electrical power came back on at Hall’s Auto Service around 1 p.m. Tuesday after a fleet of bucket trucks and linemen responded to the emergency cleanup.

The National Weather Service at Binghamton, New York ruled out a tornado and called it a severe storm that whipped through the Wyoming Valley.

Hall looked north on South Main Street toward the activity that had been going on for hours to repair damage done in seconds.

“We were standing in the door. It was a like a whiteout coming this way,” Hall said.

“You could see it twisting,” his brother Mike said.

“It was a whirling sound. It was fast,” John Hall added.

The power went out, came back on for a few seconds before a transformer exploded and the lights went out for good, Hall said.

The brothers returned to work Tuesday morning. “We got cordless drop lights and cordless power tools, so we’re alright,” Hall said.

The storm knocked out power to approximately 6,300 customers, Alana Roberts, Regional Affairs Director for PPL Electric Utilities in Scranton, said in an email.

The public utility company moved crews from other service areas to Wilkes-Barre and they worked through the night. By early Tuesday afternoon fewer than 15 customers were without power, Roberts said.

“Crews had to replace 20 poles, including 12 that were knocked to the ground. Critical equipment on many of those poles was also damaged,” Roberts said.

Wilkes-Barre City Fire Department firefighters rescued a woman who had been trapped in a parked car when live wires fell on it outside Abe’s Hot Dogs on South Main Street. She was unharmed.

Hall was surprised no one was hurt.

“How were there no cars driving down the street? That’s just incredible. That’s what I can’t get over,” Hall said.

West Side damage

Across the Susquehanna River, the storm toppled trees on the West Side and disrupted power to more than 1,300 UGI Electric customers.

In Kingston, Joe Butcher waited for the electricity to return to his house on Gibson Avenue. A huge oak tree fell toward a neighbor’s house across the street, but it could have been worse.

“The power lines kept the tree from going onto the house,” Butcher said as a crane loaded a section of the trunk with the roots still attached into a dump truck.

Butcher said there was a “pretty well coordinated” effort between the municipality of Kingston, the utility companies and contractors to clear the streets and restore power.

Near the Kingston border with Luzerne on Union Street, Justin Andres sat on his porch while crews worked high above on the lines. Andres said he works from home and it was approaching 24 hours without power. The time for it to be restored kept getting pushed back, he said.

“You can’t do anything if you can’t turn on your systems,” Andres said.

UGI had most of the service restored to the West Side by 5 p.m. Tuesday. The company’s website, ugi.com/outages, reported 56 customers in Kingston were still without power.

Reach Jerry Lynott at 570-991-6120 or on Twitter @TLJerryLynott.