CAMPBELLTOWN, Pa. - A storm packing high winds ripped through south-central Pennsylvania on Wednesday, damaging at least 50 homes in a housing development and injuring 12 people, including one critically, authorities said.

Thirteen-year-old Christy Hetrick was at home when the storm hit. She said she heard "kind of like a screeching noise" and looked outside to see many trees knocked over. She said the storm lasted about an hour.

"I had tears in my eyes because it was so horrible," she said.

High winds and heavy rains have damaged hundreds of houses, stalled cars, breached small dams, downed power lines and closed roadways from Kentucky to the eastern seaboard in an onslaught of severe weather since Monday.

In New Jersey, residents of Lumberton — the town hardest hit by floodwaters — awaited word from inspectors on when they could return to their homes to assess the damage and start cleaning up.

In Kentucky, power outages numbered in the hundreds of thousands statewide as straight-line winds, reaching sustained gusts of 80 mph, toppled trees and power lines. In Louisville, some officials said the outages were the worst since the devastating tornados of April 1974.

In one county, intense winds destroyed a mobile home near Cecilia, Ky., and sheared the roof off another, said David Underwood, Hardin County emergency management director. "It was a very scary time," he said.

In Maryland, Gov. Robert Ehrlich declared a limited state of emergency Wednesday in two counties after floods damaged roads and homes. In the counties, a raging thunderstorm on Monday caused creeks and streams to overflow their banks and flood towns in the northeastern part of the state.

Meanwhile, the community of Campbelltown, about 16 miles east of Harrisburg, took the brunt of thunderstorms that swept through south-central Pennsylvania, said Jamie Wolgemuth, spokesman for the Lebanon County Emergency Management Agency.

"We've had significant damage to structures, and lots of trees and lines down," Wolgemuth said.

At least 20 homes in the 2-year-old Country Squire Estates development were leveled or appeared uninhabitable.

With more storms expected, police drove through the neighborhood with bullhorns early Wednesday night to evacuate residents as they were picking through their damaged or destroyed homes. School buses were brought in for the evacuation to the local volunteer fire hall.

Although tornado warnings had been posted, authorities could not immediately confirm the presence of a twister.

David Ondrejik, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in State College, said he received a wind report of 73 mph in Lancaster County.

Twelve people were taken to Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, one with critical injuries and two with serious injuries and the rest with minor wounds "like cuts requiring stitches," hospital spokesman Sean Young said.

Yahoo News

BACK