Crews From As Far Away As Indiana Helping Cleanup From Severe Storms In Montgomery County
MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa. (CBS) -- A major cleanup is underway from severe storms that wreaked havoc on the region Wednesday evening. Communities across Montgomery County saw all kinds of damage, from trees down to flooding caused by strong winds and pounding rain.
Thousands of people are still without power. PECO is reporting more than 8,000 outages.
Crews are working to get residents back online Thursday night, but some hard-hit areas won't have power restored until Friday.
It was an intense storm, but the major impact was in a small area. There are still thousands of people without power.
As many as 600 additional field crews from as far away as Indiana are headed our way to help.
Tree crews have been busy for the past 24 hours.
"We're taking the ones off the houses first. So this is the third one we're doing since last night," said Dan Moore with Dan Moore Tree Service.
For heavy-duty jobs, cranes are brought in.
In East Norriton, an elderly couple had quite the scare.
"They were outside trying to put their umbrellas away and they got soaking wet so she went in to change her shirt," David Sweeney said.
Moments after walking inside, the tree in their backyard came barreling through the roof.
"My stepfather had injuries to his head. He got hit by something. And he got a cut on his leg and a cut on his arm," Sweeney said.
He was taken to the hospital and released Thursday. The rear of their home is now completely destroyed. The walls are gone, the door crushed. They will now be staying with relatives.
Montgomery County was in the bullseye of Wednesday's storm. There were up to 84,000 people without power at the height of the storm.
That number is now just over 8,000. Some have turned to generators.
"Brought it out of the shed and set it up on the porch and now we have power to the major things," East Norriton resident William Morton said.
Crews have been working around the clock with the help of additional crews from out of town, working up to 16-hour shifts until everyone's lights are back on.
PECO estimates most of the remaining power outages will be restored by this evening. For some, it will extend to Friday afternoon. Cleanup in the area could take weeks.