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DELAWARE (6/24/2015) Thousands of electric customers remained without power in Delaware this afternoon in the wake of severe thunderstorms with high winds that brought down trees and wires, and damaged buildings across the region. Delmarva Power estimates on its website that many customers may not have service restored until Friday afternoon.
New Castle County police said this morning that some cellphone service had been affected by the storm, with calls placed on one carrier receiving a fast busy signal and the call would not go through to a landline. Officer First Class Tom Jackson said this afternoon the problem had been resolved.
He did not name the carrier but Wilmington police said Verizon cellphone customers could not make any police emergency, non-emergency or administrative calls.
Several Verizon Wireless customers reported they could not make calls to other cellphones either.
Storms have impacted customers on all cellular networks in PA, DE & south NJ. Verizon is working to fix asap. Next update at 4pm ET today.
— Verizon News (@VerizonNews) June 24, 2015
Verizon crews were repairing damaged cables on Philadelphia Pike at Duncan Road, and DelDOT reported at 1:30 p.m. that the pike was still closed in that area in both directions. Earlier, DelDOT reported a downed tree had closed Barley Mill Road in the area of Tatnall School. The storms dumped at least an inch of rain at many spots across Delaware, with more than 2 inches near Georgetown, according to the National Weather Service. A wind gust of 67 mph was measured at New Castle Airport about 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, with sustained wind of 53 mph. At Philadelphia International Airport, a gust of 72 mph at 6 p.m. was the fourth highest on record. Wind tore off part of the roof on a three-story building at Sixth and Lincoln streets in Wilmington. And lightning sparked a fire that caused $200,000 damage to a home in Glasgow. A senior-citizen high-rise building was evacuated during power outage Tuesday night, Wilmington Fire Chief Anthony Goode reported on Twitter.
@WilmFireDept & @WilmfirePrev worked for hours in a seniors residential high rise who’s power went out. WFD @ work! pic.twitter.com/Bmnxx277AR — Anthony S. Goode (@WilmFireChief) June 24, 2015
The weather service had reports of funnel clouds in Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania and in Camden, New Jersey, but none of these have been confirmed as tornadoes hitting the ground.
At the peak of the storms Tuesday evening, Delmarva Power had more than 68,000 customers without service in northern Delaware and nearby Maryland, with about 45,000 of those in New Castle County.
At 12:45 this afternoon, Delmarva was reporting more than 15,700 still out in New Castle County and more than 8,000 in Cecil and Harford counties in Maryland.
The Delaware Electric Cooperative had more than 2,200 outages Tuesday evening in Kent and Sussex counties, but all but about 80 members had service restored by sunrise this morning and all were back online by noon.
In Pennsylvania, PECO at 8 a.m. reported more than 71,000 customers without electric service in Delaware County and over 57,000 in Chester County.