Joe Warren has been in the drive-in movie scene for about six decades. But he has rarely seen devastation to an outdoor theater like he did Wednesday morning at Evergreen Drive-In.
Warren, owner of the East Huntingdon theater, surveyed the splintered wooden trusses and bent metal scraps piled in the far corner of the drive-in. What once was the theater’s oldest screen — installed when Evergreen opened in 1947 — lay in pieces following severe thunderstorms that raced across Western Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening.
“It’s going to be a lot of cleanup,” said Warren, who has owned the theater for about 26 years. “It’s going to take time.”
Evergreen Drive-In is just one example of Westmoreland County homes, yards and roads impacted by Tuesday’s storms. As winds up to 79 mph whipped across the region, calls to local and county authorities skyrocketed.
Westmoreland County Public Safety typically fields 1,000 calls per day, spokesperson Cassandra Kovatch said. There were more than 5,000 calls Tuesday from residents of 42 municipalities, including reports of damaged roofs, downed trees and fallen power lines.
“We always know that with springtime comes more risk of storms,” Kovatch said, “but yesterday was more significant for us than we’ve seen in the past.”
West Penn Power reported Wednesday afternoon about 37,700 Westmoreland customers were without power.
The thunderstorms and high winds — reaching 70 mph to nearly 80 mph — impacted the majority of Western Pa., stretching from I-80 to the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Timothy Cermak.
The weather service has received widespread reports of wind damage, downed trees and power lines, shingles ripped from roofs and windows blown out of high rise buildings in downtown Pittsburgh.
The weather service is investigating the Wilkinsburg and Churchill areas for a possible tornado, Cermak said.
“We received damage reports from the entire (region),” Cermak said. “Everything from Washington County through Greene County up to Pittsburgh and Westmoreland.”
The storms originated in eastern Indiana about 10 or 11 a.m. Tuesday, traveling through Ohio throughout the day, Cermak said. Storms reached Pennsylvania just before 5 p.m., blasting across Western Pa. from west to east over the next hour.
The storms hit Westmoreland County by about 6 p.m., Cermak said.
As crews continue to move fallen trees from roads and address downed power lines, Westmoreland Public Safety is in what it calls “storm mode,” Kovatch said.
In preparation for the impending storm, the public safety office staffed its emergency operation center to make sure it had enough hands on deck to address damage.
“That is a ton of additional workload onto our (staff),” she said. “They’re taking call after call after call … It shows us how valuable they are. They are a true asset in handling the chaos.”
Drive-in to stay open
Warren, whose family used to own seven drive-in theaters throughout Western Pa. and New York, can recall only one other instance of a screen collapsing because of weather, and that was in his childhood.
“I was there. I saw it,” he said, reflecting on the 1960s memory. “I can still remember it.”
The theater’s other two screens — installed in 2001 — were unaffected by the storms, Warren said. As long as the main building and restrooms maintain power, the drive-in will be able to show films this weekend as planned.
Warren suspects the damaged screen was weakened in a March storm, which broke a few wooden trusses and supporting beams. He is not sure how long it will take to install a new screen.
“There’s only one screen builder that builds the best screens, and they’re in Ohio,” Warren said. “(The owner) retired 30 years ago, but, on occasion, his company will still do this … I’m waiting for him to get back to me.”
Tree displaces Unity family
It was fortunate for Dave Trout’s family that Tuesday’s storm swept through the Unity neighborhood of Charter Oak at dinnertime.
That was when high winds toppled a 100-year-old, 90-foot-tall oak tree onto the roof above their bedrooms.
“Even though people call it an act of nature, we feel wholeheartedly that God’s fingers were all over it,” said Trout. “It fell at a time when we weren’t in that room and a time when we were all together as a family.
“Had it been the middle of the night, things could have gone a lot differently.”
Trout, his wife and their two children, 2 and 3, escaped unharmed but will have to seek other living arrangements while the damage to their McClellan Drive home is assessed. On Wednesday, they were staying next door with Trout’s father-in-law and the former owner of their home, Jim Vaughan, while Brinko Tree Service brought in heavy equipment to remove the tree.
“We didn’t get very far into dinner when the power went out,” Trout said. “We started scrambling to grab flashlights when, out of nowhere, there was a loud crash. You could tell it was substantial; you could feel the strike resonating.
“At that point, we grabbed the kiddos and made a beeline for the basement. I was pretty sure a tree fell, but I didn’t know the extent of the damage.”
When local firefighters arrived to assist, Trout was able to return upstairs and view where the tree had punched through the roof.
“There was maybe a foot of the ceiling that was kind of caved in,” he said.
With the front door partially obstructed, Trout’s family exited through a basement door. He said they were unable to stay inside because of the hazards of potential downed power lines and the unknown stability of the tree.
When they returned inside briefly to gather a few belongings, Trout said, “There was some creaking, and we had to get back out again.
“We’re all safe and accounted for. That’s what we’re most grateful for.”
Elsewhere in Unity, all three township road crews were at work Wednesday morning. They were continuing to assist with downed trees, completing a task they began Tuesday night.
A home along Arnold Palmer Drive, near Gravel Hill Road, was one of the final stops for a six-member crew directed by township Supervisor Ed Poponick.
Workers used chain saws to cut up portions of a 2-foot-wide maple tree that had fallen on a Verizon cable. Another crew member operating a Gradall excavator loaded the debris into a dump truck for disposal near the township garage.
“This is the biggest one so far,” Poponick said of the trees his crew cleared following the storm.
In addition to the cable line, the tree took out the resident’s mailbox, but there was no apparent damage to the home.
Poponick said it will be up to the resident to determine what to do with the lower part of the tree, which wasn’t affecting the line.
“We got lucky from what I understand,” he said of the township. “There were places that got hit worse than we did.”
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