"The Morning Call Inc., Copyright 2002"
Date: Tuesday, August 14, 1990
CARBON, SCHUYLKILL, MONROE ARE HIT HARD AS RAIN, THUNDER STORM SWEEP THROUGH AREA
A severe rain and thunder storm struck Carbon County last night and also hit portions of
Schuylkill and Monroe County hard, weather and utility officials said. The storm hit the
Lehighton area around 6:30 p.m. Within minutes the rain was fierce, lightning illuminated
the streets below the dark and ominous clouds, and clashes of thunder shook windows in downtown
Lehighton.
The Lehighton Communications center was swamped with emergency calls related to the storm.
Wires and a tree were reported down on Ashtown Road in Ashfield in Lehighton; an electrical
fire was reported in the kitchen of a house at 113 Lehigh St. in Palmerton about 7 p.m.; debris
was reported on Susquehanna Road near the Sunoco gas station in Jim Thorpe shortly after 7,
and construction barricades at the cantilever section of Route 248 were reportedly blowing over
the road.
Beltzville Drive near the marina in Franklin Township was passable, despite a mud and rock
slide blocking part of the road. Lehigh Police Chief Fred Scott summed it up this way: "Alarms
have been going off all over. Electrical storms activate a lot of alarm systems, you can always
count on that."
The Pennsylvania Power & Light Company's Northern Division, which includes Stroudsburg and the
Honesdale, Wayne County, and Lake Wallenpaupack areas, endured power outages, said Bud Hackett,
PP&L spokesman.
Charles Giannetta, meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said thunderstorm warnings
went out for Carbon, Monroe and Schuylkill counties early yesterday evening, when a cold front
began moving from the west to eastern portion of Pennsylvania. The storm covered all of eastern
Pennsylvania and moved through the Schuylkill County area about 6-6:30 p.m., Giannetta said.
Carbon County dispatchers were apparently still tied up with emergency calls late last night,
but their counterparts in Schuylkill County said they had one call of a house in Auburn struck
by lightning just before 8 p.m., and burglar alarms going off in Mahanoy City and lines knocked
down in West Penn Township, where a dispatch radio tower was knocked down.
Jim Wymeister, assistant fire chief in Auburn, said lightning struck the peak of a roof, causing
less than $1,000 worth of damage to a two-story frame house. The fire company was back at their
station by 9:30 p.m., Wymeister said.
Hackett said PP&L was aware of more than 16,000 customers who were without service because of
440 "cases of trouble" throughout central-eastern Pennsylvania. "The majority of those occurred
in PP&L's Northern Division," he said.
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"WEATHER BY GIANNETTA"