By Charley Falkenburg, Staff Writer
A brief, yet fierce storm on Saturday evening ravaged trees, took down wires and left many residents in central New Jersey without power but not Anita Garoniak.
Ms. Garoniak never lost her electricity. She lost her roof.
A little after 7 p.m., Ms. Garoniak was near the back of her house on 1 Harris Road in Princeton Borough when she heard the sound of smashing glass. What she found was that two trees had crashed into the corner of her house severely damaging the roof, smashing her second floor window, gate and side garden and disrupting her landscape.
Ms. Garoniak said a gust of wind from the storm had blown over a hollow and rotted sycamore tree on the street curb, which fell and decapitated a sturdy tree in her front lawn. The momentum caused both trees to collide with her home.
”These sycamores make you worry because they’re prone to go over and drop limbs they look fine on the outside, but they may be rotting away on the inside,” she said. “I’m done with things hitting my house.”
Ms. Garoniak was unsure of what the repairs would cost, but said her insurance company would cover it. As soon as PSE&G fixed the power lines in the area on Sunday night, the Public Works Department stopped by Ms. Garoniak’s house Monday morning to clean up the debris.
But the borough isn’t the only town busy cleaning up the mess the storm left in its wake.
Police, public works departments, fire companies and electric companies have been working to clean up debris, clear up roadways and fix power lines in the surrounding municipalities.
Princeton Township and Borough appear to have been hit the hardest.
Township police Sgt. Michael Cifelli said in a span of almost seven hours starting at 7 p.m., police received 65 calls for service due to the storm.
Sgt. Cifelli estimated that 1,000 houses lost power and that there were transformer fires in the areas of Grover Avenue near Dorann Avenue, the 400 block of Herrontown Road, the intersection of Magnolia Lane and Brodripple and the intersection of Route 206 and Ewing Street.
He also estimated about 50 to 60 streets, mostly in the Riverside and Littlebrook areas, suffered from fallen trees and a number of roads were closed as a result.
Township police received two reports where trees fell onto houses located on Woodside Lane and Magnolia Lane. Sgt. Cifelli said there was no damage to the homes and that the township fire department and fire marshal determined they were structurally sound. Because there were no calls made to the engineering department or house inspector, he thought small trees or branches might have hit the homes.
As of Monday, Sgt. Cifelli confirmed the township received no additional reports of power outages and that the majority of power was restored to homes Saturday night into Sunday. He said PSE&G made the necessary repairs and the lack of reports indicated power had been restored throughout the town.
”We’ve had worse storms come through any storm creates damage and this one was enough to keep us on our toes to make sure people in town are staying safe,” he said.
Although the power is restored, the township Public Works Department continues to cut down trees and clear debris in the eastern part of town. Don Hansen, the superintendent of public works, said they have been to 25 different locations and that as of 9 a.m. on July 9, all the roads were open. He estimated the department will still be busy for the next couple of days.
Mr. Hansen added there will be a brush pick up on July 16 only for the areas of the town affected by the storm.
Borough police Capt. Nicholas Sutter said the borough suffered mostly from fallen wires and trees, which contributed to power outages all over the eastern section of the borough.
He said there was one case where a tree fell onto a car, shattering the windshield, roof and hood.
The fallen trees forced road closures at Prospect Avenue, Alexander Road, Hamilton Avenue and portions of Wilton Street on Saturday, but were reopened after the Public Works Department cleared the debris.
Bill Urian, one of the foremen for public works, confirmed employees have been working around the clock to clear the mess since the first tree fell Saturday night. He said they were clearing up trees from roadways and from affected homes on Monday. He estimated the work would be finished in about a week.
West Windsor Township seems to have been hit hard as well, with several wires down and fallen trees in 13 different locations.
Alex Drummond, the director of the Public Works Department, said his crew worked from 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Saturday into Sunday, clearing trees from “all over the place.”
While Fieldston Road and Park Hill Terrace were closed. Mr. Drummond confirmed they were reopened before employees went home at 2 a.m.
”When we first come in, it’s basically to clear the roads to make them passable and then come back later to clear everything up,” he said. “We’ll still be here working the next couple of days getting everything cleaned up cutting down trees, chipping them up, stuffing them in garbage trucks and so forth.”
Plainsboro suffered much of the same damages, with wires down and fallen trees in a variety of locations.
Police Lt. Joseph Duffy said a traffic light went down on Plainsboro Road at George Davison Road, requiring a police officer to manually direct traffic during the storm.
He said there were no extensive damages and that everything was in working order as of Monday.
The storm didn’t ignore Montgomery either. Although no roads were closed, Lt. James Curry said police received six reports of fallen trees within a 15-minute period on Route 518, River Road, Montgomery Road and Orchard Road.
He said he was unaware of any power outages associated with the trees and that the town and county road departments were able to clear up the debris quickly.
”As long as the trees don’t affect the wires, the departments are able to clean them up none of them caused long term road inconveniences,” he said. “We’re in good shape as of today.”
