Friday, June 16, 2000

By KAKIE URCH, STEPHENIE STEITZER and ADAM DEAN

Centre Daily Times

An afternoon thunderstorm blew a 62-mph gust of wind through the county Thursday, flooded low-lying areas and toppled trees - including two historic Dutch elm trees on the Penn State campus.

Minutes after the deep gray sheets of rain blew across the region, scores of fire fighters, rescue workers and police officers were called out to handle the downed trees, structure fires, floods and injuries.

"We had trees on everything - on power lines, on cars, on roadways, on front porches, against houses and so forth," State College Cpl. T.S. Sleeth said.

Arborists at Penn State worked with a crane to remove one Dutch elm that fell on another in the parking lot on the north side of Old Main. But as a crane held the weight of one immense tree off another, the lower tree split and emitted an audible crack before a huge limb slowly fell to the parking lot.

Penn State police said one elm hit the roof behind the bell tower, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.

Officials were not available to comment on the condition of the rare trees, which appeared to be severely damaged.

Scott Homan, a meteorologist at Accu-Weather, confirmed that winds reached 62 mph in State College, just 10 mph short of hurricane level.

Homan did not immediately have figures on the volume of rainfall.

"The ground is soaked and any wind gust that will come by that strong is going to take something down," he said.

Sirens blared around the region as emergency workers scrambled to allocate staff members to the heavy volume of calls that went through Centre County dispatch between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. The Bellefonte office called two extra people to help the emergency communications hub handle incidents.

Among the calls, according to State College police Cpl. Rick Ososkie, were live wires down, and broken house windows and a broken van windshield in College Heights. Traffic lights at the intersections of Park Avenue and Atherton Street, Park Avenue and Allen Street, and Hillcrest Avenue and Atherton Street were out of service, Ososkie said.

State College police Cpl. Mark Argiro, his uniform soaking wet, helped handle downed wires on Arbor Way. Argiro said there was a three-car chain reaction on the 100 block of North Atherton Street.

Flooding on East College Avenue took place at a number of intersections and several cars were stalled attempting to cross high water. College Avenue near Your Building Center was flooded by about 3 feet of water, with water washing over cars' headlights and hoods.

Ferguson Township police reported flooding on Corl Street and Cherry Lane.

College Heights lost power for hours as Allegheny Power personnel worked to make the area safe and reconnect power lines.

State College police didn't call extra staff, but Sleeth said, "We pretty much utilized everything we had."

Fire fighter were busy, too, responding to downed wires, fires and vehicle accidents. Both Port Matilda Fire Company and the Alpha Fire Company in State College were hit with simultaneous calls for assistance, so other area companies helped out.

A report of smoke rising from a rooftop near Julian had Milesburg and Bellefonte fire companies searching for a fire in the downpour - just days after a home had been destroyed by a lightning-ignited blaze. These companies were taking over for the Port Matilda unit, which was called to what looked like a lightning strike in Halfmoon Township. The fire was not found.

The fire at 3171 Halfmoon Valley Road was trapped in the home's attic, according to Port Matilda Asst. Chief Mike Evanko. It caused moderate to heavy damage but no injuries. The Alphas and Warriors Mark Fire Company assisted in the hour-long effort.

Philipsburg Fire Company responded for Port Matilda to a vehicle accident on U.S. Route 322 between Port Matilda and Phil-ipsburg, Evanko said.

"We had about eight things going on at once," Alpha firefighter William DeArmitt said as he led a crew from fighting a small industrial blaze at the Corning-Asahi plant on East College Avenue at about 3:50 p.m. Pleasant Gap Fire Company sent its manpower to bolster the Alphas at that fire.

The fire at Corning was caused not by the weather, but by an overflow of hot molten glass from a press.

Nonetheless, according to Alpha Fire Chief Dennis Harris, "We handled it with all our manpower. Between all the calls there were about 40 fire fighter responding throughout our area and the mutual aid to Port Matilda."

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