Gusts, rains topple trees, tents, power lines

Gusts, rains topple trees, tents, power lines
By Jessica Willis, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Article Last Updated: 07/19/2008 03:01:51 AM EDT


Click photo to enlargeVolunteers work to fix damage to about 30 tents set up for the Pittsfield Art Show, which...«1»Sunday, July 20
PITTSFIELD — A brief but intense thunderstorm tore through Central and Northern Berkshire last night, downing trees and power lines with wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour.
About 1,420 Western Massachusetts Electric Co. customers in the county were without power after the storm, according to WMECO spokesman Frank Poirot.

Power was expected to be returned to 99 percent of WMECO's Berkshire customers by noon today, Poirot said.

Starting at about 6:30 p.m., police and fire crews responded a barrage of calls about trees and wires down on West Street, Tor Court, Lenox Avenue, Williams Street, Division Road, Crane Avenue, Brown Street, Hancock Road, Bradford Street, Partridge Avenue and Pomeroy Avenue, to name a few.

Auxilliary officers, along with plainclothes officers, detectives, and supervisors went out on the scene to help with the backlog of calls, according to Sgt. Mark Trapani of the Pittsfield Police Department.

Downed trees were also reported on Balance Rock Road and Bailey Road in Lanesborough, and on Windsor Road and Route 8 in Cheshire.

The sudden storm also damaged about 30 tents set up for the Pittsfield Art Show, which opens at 10 a.m. today at Palace Park on North Street.

Despite the 40-pound sandbags that were used to hold the tents in place, the high winds easily knocked over the tents and left them in a twisted pile.

After the rain dissipated and the sun


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cracked through the clouds, event co-chair Carolyn Koch surveyed the wreckage and kept a light mood.
"We had just finished setting up and went inside (the Lichtenstein Art Center) for pizza," Koch sighed. "Everything was too easy. We should have been suspicious at that point."

The important thing was that no one got hurt, she said, and no artwork had been damaged by the storm.

"We're just going to have to start from scratch," Koch said.

According to Megan Whilden, Pittsfield's director of cultural development, the organizers would rent, borrow, and buy new tents and open in time today. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and tomorrow.

The thunderstorm was caused by two separate systems: A storm that formed over New York's Mohawk Valley, and another storm that formed to the east, over Columbia County, according to Brian Montgomery, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Albany, N.Y.

Those two systems merged in Berkshire County, Montgomery said, and the newly-formed storm produced some "very impressive" straight line wind gusts reaching 60 miles per hour in Pittsfield and 70 miles per hour in North County's higher elevations.

Montgomery said there was no evidence of tornadic activity in the storm.

To reach Jessica Willis: jwillis@berkshireeagle.com, (413) 528-3660.