Power outage continues in Potter County

GENESEE, N.Y. (WIVB) - Communities in the southern tier and northern Pennsylvania are stunned by the aftermath of powerful storms.

Friday afternoon, there is a massive clean-up effort. Crews are out in full force in both McKean and Potter Counties. In Potter County, they're dealing with a bigger problem, there isn't any power in the county.

After strong storms pounded Pennsylvania, the clean up is on. Winds were so strong, trees were knocked to the ground. One killing 66-year-old Linda Button, from Andover, falling on her while camping in Genesee Township.

Storm victim Gary Hughes said, “Never seen anything like this, being this close to us.”

Hughes said winds came whipping through the area, so fierce, he says, it sounded like a freight train.

Hughes said, “The other trees just started smacking and the lights started blinking a couple of times and went out completely and that was the end of the electric.”

Nearly one day later, there isn't a single electric customer with lights on.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Justin Lemaire says there is a line of cars, waiting for gas at the one open station, using a generator to power up.

There are only sporadic power outages still in neighboring McKean County, where roosters ran wild after those same storms destroyed Steve Martin's barn.

Storm victim Steve Martin said, “Chickens, ducks, all the pens are gone, they were running mayhem around here and I got a couple boards through the back of the house, like a spear, into the inside, a lot of strange things.”

The strange nature of this storm was something Martin, a life-long resident of Lewis Run, says he's never seen before.

Martin said, “It was a sideways storm so bad people couldn't even hardly find anything.”

Pennsylvania State Police say crews are still looking for the source of the power outage and may not have the power restored until Saturday.