Over the weather

50 hours with no phone, power or internet access, especially with temperatures climbing back up into the 90s yesterday, was not my idea of a good time.  But we survived the summer storm without permanent damage. 

Tens of thousands of the region's residents are still sweating over the endangered contents of their power-less refrigerators. And, ironically, in part they can blame a refreshing pulse of dry air that had made a brutally hot Thursday afternoon more bearable.

That dry air evidently gave an extra destructive jolt to some of the most damaging summer storms in the region's history.

In the final tallies, about 350,000 customers lost power as a line of thunderstorms flashed through the region at lightning speed, ripping apart trees from Glenmoore, Chester County, to Hammonton, N.J., and generating winds rarely experienced around here.

About 120,000 PECO customers are still without power, primarily in Chester and Delaware Counties.

Gusts reached 75 mph in Philadelphia, 60 in Camden County, and perhaps 90 in Chester County.

Uprooted and fractured trees like the one in that photo were everywhere around these parts Thursday, many of them lying across roads, along with electrical and telephone poles and wires.  Very bad scene. 

Still catching up ...