© Eric Conover/Staff Photo
Crews work to restore power Friday on Route 54 near Lake Hauto. The storm knocked out power to more than 700 PPL customers.
Ermano Agosti described the storm as sounding "like a train" blasting through his Lake Hauto neighborhood Thursday night.
The wind uprooted trees with root bags 6 feet tall - some of which landed on homes and power lines - cut a path about 50 feet wide into a wooded area, and knocked out electricity that won't be completely restored until late this afternoon.
The storm brought heavy winds and hail into the lake development, which straddles the Schuylkill-Carbon County border and is partially in Rush Township and partially in Nesquehoning, but injured no one.
While the storm had characteristics of a tornado, it likely would not be designated as one, according to Pete Young, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service office in State College.
"We didn't get any indications of a tornado on the radar last night, or any indications from people there this morning," he said. "It was probably a strong line, what we call a downburst. There was severe, localized damage, and winds probably were between 60 and 80 mph, considering the way the trees were damaged."
While most residents in the development have electric service restored, some don't.
Paul Canevari, a spokesman for PPL, said crews will be working into today, as they did Thursday into Friday, to get all customers back on line.
"The outage affected 700 customers," he said. "We have restored approximately 530 customers as of 2 p.m. (Friday). The remaining 170 will be restored by 5 p.m. (today)."
On Friday, trees were either uprooted or split along nearly every street in the development. The scene looked like a log-cutting contest, with sawdust and the sound of chain saws everywhere.
