x
Breaking News
More () »

Cleaning up after storms Luzerne County

Storms Monday night took down several trees and caused widespread damage.

LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — When Don Bly of Don's Tree Service sees pictures like this popping up online during a storm, he knows one thing.

"We're in trouble," Bly said. "It kind of bounces my regular schedule around a little bit and it just adds more work to heavier workload for us."

Because trees on cars, blocking driveways and on houses are moved to the top of the list to be taken care of as soon as possible.

Considering how many stops Bly and his crew have to make, he says the damage caught him off guard.

"We didn't have as much damage as we did last week. But I'm just a little, I'm a little surprised to see as much as we did," said Bly.

Gerry Walker, vice president of the Idetown Fire Department, says the damage caught him off guard, too.

"I mean, there's just no words to describe how bad it was," said Walker.

In the moment, Walker says it felt like emergency calls after the storm would not stop.

"The winds were very high. The lightning was very dangerous. A lot of heavy rain. I think a couple of inches fell within 45 minutes. But we're still out there. We're still trying to do what we have to do to serve the community," said Walker.

Jane Tinsley of Harveys Lake says it was only a matter of minutes between heading inside at the first sign of a storm and finding a pine tree on her house.

"The clouds were streaming by; the rain was horrible. I was running upstairs to shut all the windows because all the doors were slamming because we had the windows open," she explained. "My husband actually was looking at the trees, and he's like, I'm worried about them because the tops of these trees were just blowing really hard. And then, all of a sudden, we just kind of heard a thud. We thought it was a door at first slamming again, but it kind of shook the house, and then I went in and looked at the window and saw that."

Despite having to find a way to remove this tree and repair the damage, Jane says she is lucky.

"That it didn't take more of the house out. We were lucky it just hit the ridge that we know of there might be a little damage in the attic but that we didn't have more damage and that we were lucky," Jane added.

First responders are counting their blessings too, despite the widespread damage throughout the Back Mountain, no one was seriously hurt.

"We got real lucky. I mean surprisingly I mean there's cars out still in the storm trying to go home and people get home. I think people realize that just storms coming in, everybody's inside, everybody's trying to do what they can protect themselves, and nobody was hurt from what I heard. I heard no injuries," explained Walker.

Folks in the Back Mountain hope this luck stays with them as more storms are expected throughout the rest of the week. 

First responders and tree crews say they are prepared should it run out.

For the latest Stormtracker 16 Forecast, click here.

Before You Leave, Check This Out