Utility trucks filled the parking lot at St. John Byzantine Church in Scottdale on Monday, awaiting orders as a separate work crew took down the remaining half of a tree that had snapped during heavy winds.
Scottdale residents were slowly seeing their power restored Monday as they continued to assess the damage left behind by a massive, quick-moving storm that roared through the region Saturday afternoon.
“Our roof was damaged also, so I’m waiting for the insurance company to call,” said St. John’s priest, the Rev. Oleh Seremchuk.
Teams from the National Weather Service’s office in Moon scanned Washington, Fayette and Westmoreland counties Monday for storm damage, said meteorologist Jason Frazier. Two tornadoes have been confirmed — one touched down about 5 miles southeast of Smithton and another hit southeast of Ellsworth, Washington County, Frazier said.
No significant storm damage was reported in Allegheny County, he said.
More than 200 customers in Scottdale were without power as of 1:45 p.m. Monday, according to West Penn Power. More than 500 customers were without power to the borough’s southeast in Everson and Upper Tyrone, just over the line in Fayette County.
Between the Scottdale churchyard and a neighboring property, crews had already removed about a half-dozen trees. Both are on the northeastern side of Scottdale, which seemed to bear the brunt of the storm’s fury.
Scottdale Mayor Lindy House lives in that part of the borough.
“As soon as the worst was past, I jumped in my Jeep and hit the road,” said House, who issued an emergency declaration for the borough Sunday. She said she stood briefly on her side porch when she first received a possible tornado warning on her phone.
“As a Southerner, we’re very accustomed to tornado warnings,” House said. “It was raining and looked pretty bad just before 3:30 p.m. Then it got really quiet and the clouds started moving more quickly — we could tell something bad was about to happen.”
Not far away, on Porter Avenue, Mary Villa and her boyfriend arrived home just ahead of the storm Saturday afternoon.
“We were going to let the dogs out to go to the bathroom, but the storm came on so fast, we weren’t able,” Villa said. “We went straight down to the basement.”
The wind uprooted a tree in Villa’s front yard, and cracked large sections off two silver maple trees beside her house.
“I haven’t been able to get a look up top, but I don’t think there’s any damage to the roof,” she said. “There are a couple little dents in my car and a tiny chip in my windshield, but that’s it.”
Terri Springer’s son wasn’t so lucky.
He was in Florida on vacation when the storm rolled through, and a friend texted him a photo of his truck, parked on North Grove Street with most of a neighbor’s tree on top of it.
“We were at a graduation party, and he sent me a photo before we got home and said, ‘Mom, I think that’s our street,’ but I thought surely it couldn’t be,” Springer said. “We just bought a new convertible and it was parked right nearby.”
The convertible wasn’t damaged, but Springer and several others were working to clear the tree and the vines that wrapped it from top to bottom off her son’s truck.
Jim Porter, who lives around the corner on Loucks Avenue, was also away from home when the storm came through. He was so distracted looking at the massive downed trees on his street that he failed to notice a large branch had blown directly onto his porch roof.
“It’s just a few inches from the bedroom window, I’m lucky it didn’t break it,” Porter said. “A big tree on the corner snapped the utility pole and pulled down the wires going up the alley, so the utility has been here replacing the pole and working on getting the power back on.”
House said it was surprising how much damage the storm did.
“The worst of it was maybe five or 10 minutes,” she said.
For homeowners like Villa with giant downed tree branches, the worst may be yet to come.
“I got an estimate for something like $6,000 to clean my property up,” she said with a sigh.
Staff writer Quincey Reese contributed to this story. Renatta Signorini and Patrick Varine are TribLive staff writers. Renatta can be reached at rsignorini@triblive.com. Patrick can be reached at pvarine@triblive.com.