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PRINCETON: Progress reported in storm cleanups, power restorations

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
    PRINCETON — Princeton University reported late Tuesday that power had been restored to most campus buildings affected by Monday night’s flash thunderstorms and Faculty Road between Washington Road and Harrison Street re-opened.
   Overall,  according to PSE&G, 284 cusomers in the area had lost power after heavy thunderstorms and high winds passed through the area Monday night. Utility and cleanup crews spent much of Tuesday repairing power lines and clearing away fallen tree limbs. ON Wednesday, a PSE&G spokeswoman said power had been restored to the area..
    The Butler Tract, off Harrison Street, an area of married student housing at Princeton University, was particularly hard hit by the flash storm.
 ”We got hit on a real concentrated spot, several trees and poles down,” that necessitated the evacuation of the Butler Tract, said Lieutenant Michael Henderson of the Princeton Township police department.
   ”My wife got caught between two downed trees,” said Matthew Escarra, a graduate student living on Marshall Street. Escarra is from New Orleans and survived Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “It looks like Hurricane Katrina minus the flooding; when I got back to my home after Katrina, there were trees down, chimneys down-this reminds me of that.”
   Escarra let his neighbors, whose home was uninhabitable, stay at his house last night while he and his wife stayed with friends across town.
   ”The saddest part to me is these beautiful trees will be gone,” he added as he watched crews put limbs through a chipper as part of the clean up.
   ”It looks like a little tornado went through here on just this street,” said Tom Petrik, a PSE&G worker who was working on restoring power to the neighborhood. “Restoring power is a slow process; you have to make sure everything is safe.”
   PSE&G officials estimate about 2,000 people were without power and electric should be restored later today or tomorrow.
   The concentration of damage actually worked in the favor of residents, because “if it was more spread out we wouldn’t be able to get the resources” here so quickly, said one university official who declined to be named.
   ”The sirens were insane, I didn’t know what was going on,” said Karen tank of MacLean Circle. “I was in my kitchen watching it with my son. It was like a wall with sheets of rain.”
   The storm suddenly swept into the area. “Beforehand I was playing in the rain, it was really sudden,” said 19-year-old Carolyn Calderbank of Sycamore Road. “It started to drizzle and I thought it would be a normal storm but then the wind came and I saw a (flower) pot go flying and thought it might be dangerous so I went inside and locked the doors. I stayed in the middle of the house-the smarter thing to do would have been to go to the basement, but I was fascinated by the storm.”
   There were several limbs and a tree down on her family’s property and the family Volvo sustained considerable damage, with the windshield smashed in by a chunk of a tree, a shattered sunroof and several dents. “I’m going to have to figure out insurance calls, this is going to be amusing,” she added.Anne Lord, her husband and 3-year-old son were evacuated last night to Frist Campus Center and were returning home to check on their house. “We were on a random trip to the library (when the storm struck).” said Mrs Lord, whose house had a tree fall on it. “We were only gone an hour and came back around 6 p.m. and went into the house and saw water leaking in from some roof damage.”
   Her husband Errol said the home didn’t have much damage and was not on the list of damaged homes. “It is remarkably undamaged, it looks like the tree fell apart on the way down,” he said. An area of the window frame in their bathroom is damaged from on of the fallen branches.
   In addition to the closure of Plainsboro Road between Maple and Connector, fallen tree limbs were being reported along several other roads in the immediate vicinity on Tuesday morning. Overnight, storm damage occurred on Harrison Street and Sycamore Lane in Princeton, with reports that trees had fallen onto several houses along Harrison and Sycamore as well as Cedar Lane.
  Married student housing at Princeton University in the Butler Tract off Harrison Street was also affected by power outages and fallen trees. The Princeton University News Service issued the following update late Tuesday:

Faculty Road re-opened, power restored on campus

Faculty Road between Washington Road and Harrison Street has been re-opened, and power has been restored to most campus buildings, as of 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 17.

In the wake of severe thunderstorms that generated high winds and resulted in damage to some housing units shortly before 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 16, Public Safety and the Department of Facilities continue to assist residents of the Butler Apartments who were affected by downed trees and power lines.

Residents of select Butler units are being provided temporary housing elsewhere on campus until it is deemed safe for them to reoccupy units that were damaged beyond occupancy. These residents have been notified that they should report to the Housing Office at the MacMillan Building in order to receive keys to temporary housing units.

All other residents of Butler have been notified that they may return to their units, proceeding with caution in the area because of downed tree limbs. A temporary shelter in the Multipurpose Room of the Frist Campus Center will continue to be available to all Butler residents through the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 18, but power has been restored at Dean Mathey and Hibben-Magie apartments, at the University housing on Prospect Avenue between Washington Road and Harrison Street, and most Butler apartments

Cots and toiletries were made available to Butler residents beginning the evening of Aug. 16, and Dining Services made food and beverages available to those who were not able to return to their homes.

Current estimates are that fallen trees and ongoing electrical issues have affected about 12 buildings in the Butler complex. About 50 Butler residents have been affected. There were no injuries.

Butler residents sheltering in Frist continue to be directed to park their vehicles in Lot 21.

If campus residents have an emergency, they should contact Public Safety at 911 from a campus phone or 258-3333 from other phones. To report damage, residents should call the Facilities Customer Service line, 258-8000.

Further updates will be posted on the Department of Facilities outages website: www.princeton.edu/facilities/info/news/outages/.