The cleanup continues and the costs mount

Barry Feinberg, in his bathroom to wash before bed, heard the first sizzle. His lights dimmed as a flash filled his skylight overhead. Just as quickly, his lights flickered back on. "That's when I heard the second sizzle," he said. Then came the darkness. It was 1:15 AM.

"I was afraid my roof was on fire," Feinberg said.

A neighbor (who wished not to be identified) a few houses from Feinberg at the intersection of Norwalk, Walley, and Morefield Aves. quivered in bed as the cacophony of pounding rain and screaming winds whirled outside her house. "I'd never heard any sound like it before," she said. "All I could do was pray and think about the tornado warnings."

There was a tornado. But it passed this Bustleton neighborhood on a devastating journey from Lower Moreland to an industrial park at Southampton Rd. and Roosevelt Blvd. where it destroyed several buildings and tore the roofs off others.

Like most Northeast Philadelphians, Monday morning's storm left Morefield residents without electricity and carting away broken tree limbs.

Bill Pace, of the 600 block of Rhawn St., awoke to the sound of a crash, then a loud bang. He peeked out his window to see a tree stretched across his lawn and on top of his neighbor's SEV6 truck. The tree crashed over the truck's hood and shattered its front window.

"My whole family woke up," said Pace, "but decided to go back to bed. There was nothing we could do until morning."

That's when he discovered his Homeowner's Insurance didn't cover the cost of tree removal or the damage to the car.

His neighbor had just moved into the newly-built house, which was not damaged.

"What a nice housewarming gift," Pace said, as he watched contractors chop the tree into small disposable pieces.

In the Far Northeast, the damage was extensive. Lawns charred under downed live wires and some homes cracked under the weight of grand old trees unable to withstand the gale.

No where was that more clear than along Roosevelt Blvd. From Comly Rd. to Southampton, and from Lower Moreland to Parkwood, rows of trees stood broken at the same height. It was as if Paul Bunyon marched down Roosevelt Blvd. lopping off their heads with one giant slash. Outside the Pepsi Coca plant, a tree popped out of its base and took the sidewalk with it.

Overall, over 330,000 Pennsylvanians were left without power. The line of storms that began in Central Pennsylvania claimed three lives (none locally). Weather officials believe at least two tornados touched down in the Delaware Valley, including the twister that devastated the industrial park on Southampton Rd.

The National Weather Service clocked winds as high as 71-mph. Accu-Weather counted 7,000 lightning strikes an hour at the storm's height.

One Burholme resident felt much of the damage could have been prevented.

William Gibbs has been trying to get his tree trimmed since he moved in to his house on the 1300 block of Cottman Avenue 15 years ago. In fact, he called the Fairmount Park Commission three weeks ago to get the tree pruned. They told him he'd have to wait over 18 months.

Mother Nature pruned it for him. The morning after the storm, the single branch from the tree dangled from a live wire. Tracker-trailers struggled to pass underneath.

"If the city would have trimmed the tree, this would not have happened," said Gibbs, "The city would have saved money in the long run if they had centered on prevention."

Peco promised to fix the problem as soon as it could, but crews Monday were spread thin.

"We know to cancel any plans for the next couple of nights," said a Peco worker collecting wires from the Morefield, Norwalk, and Wally Ave. intersection.

He was called in to work at 5 AM. The first crews arrived on Morefield at about 3 AM. By noon on Monday, the electricity was back on. Barry Feinberg and his neighbors could move inside with their air conditioners and relax after a morning of sweeping and bundling twigs. Life is returning to normal.

But they'll never forget their near-miss with that tornado.

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