Storms cause major damage to buildings and trees in Orange County
ORANGE COUNTY, New York (WABC) -- Officials in Orange County are surveying the damage left behind by severe storms on Monday night.
The storm was brief, but the damage was extensive. In Chester, the roof came off the old Chester High School on Maple Avenue.
The building was most recently used as a special education building but was not currently in use and no injuries were reported.
Wind gusts topped 60 mph and was so strong it snapped the tops of several trees in the area and even brought down utility poles.
One resident said the sky turned black then completely white from the intensity of the rain and it was all over within 5 minutes.
"It went white actually, for a second, and the rain was so hard and so fast that it was like a white screen," Chester resident Princess Sladden said.
Patricia Kay lost dozens of trees on her property, and her husband escaped injury, stuck in his car on their driveway.
"Totally trapped him, so the line that he couldn't go anymore, and the line had gone on the car, just two feet more he would've been trapped in the car with a live wire on top of him," she said.
The focus on Tuesday was cleaning up after utility crews worked through the night to restore power. At one point nearly 6,000 customers were without power.
Meanwhile in Goshen, Supervisor Joseph Betro declared a state of emergency because "flooding conditions are dangerous and pose a real and substantial risk to the health and safety of those residing in certain areas of the town."
"We lost about a dozen electrical poles they're cleaning up right now on Reservoir Road, probably got about 50 houses still completely out, but we're getting to it," Betro said.
The localized damage means crews aren't stretched thin and can concentrate on restoring service.
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