WEST WOODSTOCK — Emergency responders were busy on Thursday afternoon after a powerful storm knocked down trees and power lines in more than 20 Upper Valley towns.
Between 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., dispatchers at the Hanover Regional Communications Center fielded more than 50 storm-related emergency calls, according to a post on the center’s social media page.
In Windsor, Cliff and Lisa Blodgett arrived home from work to find that a maple tree had fallen onto their house, cracking ceilings and breaking glass. Their two dogs were unharmed.
“I mean it’s nerve-racking for sure,” Lisa Blodgett said of the experience in a Thursday interview.
“My first worry was my dogs, and they’re OK,” she said.
She and her husband, who have homeowners insurance, planned to sleep in their house Thursday night as they still had electricity. The couple have lived in the house, near the Windsor Fairgrounds, for over 20 years.
Meanwhile on Thursday, the Woodstock Fire Department responded to a “significant wind event” in West Woodstock, according to a department news release. No injuries were reported, but the wind affected several homes and businesses in the area. Firefighters helped secure the properties, conducted door-to-door checks and turned off solar panels on empty buildings to prevent other hazards.
“Damage throughout the area ranged from minor to moderate, with one structure completely destroyed,” the release said.
The powerful winds brought down trees and broke windows in a West Woodstock home belonging to Jen and Bryon Lockhart. The family was safe after taking shelter in the basement.
After the storm, friends from the Woodstock Area Mountain Bike Association and neighbors arrived to help cover broken windows to secure the home.
“We didn’t ask anybody to come,” said Jen Lockhart.
Hartford, Hartland and Woodstock were among the towns most heavily impacted by the storm’s strong rain and winds.
Hartford had 33 active outages at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, while Woodstock had 25 active incidents and Hartland had 10, according to a live report from Green Mountain Power.
The Quechee Club also was hit hard by the storm. General Manager and Chief Operating Officer Brian Kelley estimates several hundred trees fell on the club’s property.
Around 50 trees fell on the club’s Lakeland Course, which was closed on Friday while the club’s agronomy crew addressed the damage.
A small number of trees also came down on the club’s Highland Course, which was closed for a couple hours in the morning but re-opened by the afternoon.
At least half a dozen condos also sustained roof damage, Kelley said.
No injuries were reported.
The full cost of cleaning up after the damage from the storm and potentially replanting trees was yet to be determined as of Friday, Kelley said.
Multiple fallen trees impacted traffic flow on Thursday on the portion of Route 4 running through West Woodstock as well as surrounding areas, Woodstock’s Municipal Manager Eric Duffy wrote in a public statement.
Town officials contacted the state for assistance and sent members of Woodstock’s Public Works Department to oversee the removal of obstacles, Duffy wrote.
“Please use caution if you are traveling Route 4 West, or any adjacent roadways while we work to resolve this issue in a timely manner. If you have any safety concerns please call 911 immediately,” the statement continued.
A team from the National Weather Service, or NWS, planned to conduct a survey in the Woodstock area on Friday morning to determine if the storm was in fact a tornado, Marvin Boyd, a meteorologist at the NWS in Burlington said on Thursday.
Part of the survey includes ascertaining whether the storm’s winds were straight-lined or rotational by studying debris patterns, Boyd said.
If debris such as trees fall in parallel lines, “straight line winds” were at play, according to the National Weather Service website. But in a tornado, debris often lies at an angle due to curving “inflow winds,” the website says.
In Hartford, emergency services responded to “numerous trees and wires” that had come down throughout town, the Hartford Fire Department posted on social media on Thursday afternoon.
Those in the vicinity were encouraged to stay away from fallen trees and wires.
“Assume all wires are live and dangerous until the power company can arrive and de-energize them,” the statement continued.
