St. Thomas, Mercersburg areas hit hard by storm's intense fury

Most of Franklin County managed to escape the horrible wrath of Superstorm Sandy, but St. Thomas and parts of Mercersburg (Pa.) felt her destructive force and spent Tuesday cleaning up.

The eye went over north of Chambersburg and concentrated in St. Thomas, according to Franklin County Department of Emergency Services.


St. Thomas Fire Chief Tom Bigler was still running calls at noon on Tuesday after starting at 3 p.m. on Monday.

“We’ve been out all morning cutting trees and trying to clear roads because our main objective is to have at least one lane of traffic open,” Bigler said. “We probably had 70 mile per hour winds here in the township (St. Thomas). It seems like no one else had the wind speeds like we had in the area that I know of.”

All over St. Thomas, telephone poles were sheared off, trees were uprooted, parts of roofs were missing and utility crews were working feverishly trying to restore service to customers.

Right now, everyone is battling this wind, Bigler said.

He said trees fell into about seven homes in St. Thomas.

“There are probably basements that are flooded with the electricity out and the sump pumps not working,” Bigler said.

But, on Tuesday, the fire company still did not have phone service at the fire company.

So, residents could not call the fire company to ask for flood assistance.

The wind uprooted two trees at a home on Lincoln Way West in St. Thomas.

“They’re not home,” neighbor Lori Hartman yelled from across U.S. 30.

Hartman said the family is in Florida, but she told them about the uprooted trees.

“We were prepared for it but still it was the magnitude of the wind and everything — I wasn’t expecting to actually come out and see the trees down this morning,” she said.

When the wind and rain knocked out the power, Hartman and her children Timothy McGowan, 13, and Maranda McGowan, 16, huddled in one bedroom and put on extra clothes.

They were without light or heat from 5 p.m. Monday to about 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.

It wasn’t the cold that bothered Timothy when the power went off.

“I was annoyed that the power went off, because I was in the middle of a (XBox) game,” he said.

Mike Ryder of Ryder Construction couldn’t believe the punch that Sandy packed.