Confirmed Tornado Takes Out Power, Trees in Summit

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Power was expected to be restored to most Summit residents by late Monday night at about midnight, Emergency Management Coordinator Chris Cotter told Patch Monday evening.

Cotter had just finished meeting with a National Weather Service survey team around 8 p.m. Monday. The team toured the damage around the city and later determined that a tornado did move through Summit, originating in Berkeley Heights, on Monday morning. 

Cotter said most of the downed wires and trees have been cleared Monday night and no injuries have been reported at this time. 

“The power company had forestry crews in Summit very quickly this morning along with crews that were de-energizing downed wires so that helped our DPW crews get out and remove the trees, and open the roads fairly quickly,” Cotter told Patch Monday night.

“Now the power company is in restoration mode. In some cases, there are downed poles. There’s a pole that snapped on Hobart Avenue, for example, so that’s a little longer process to bring in a new pole, set it, and restring the wires. But they’ve got a lot of resources. They’ve got four or five crews working on that right now so they’ll probably get that up and running by midnight tonight.”

Cotter said Division Avenue was also closed for repairs on Monday evening. 

Cotter said some homes had a service connection damage that’s going to require some repairs by an electrician before they can restore their power, which is why some residents may not have power back until Tuesday.

Numerous trees, tree limbs and power lines were down following the storm Monday morning.

Seven homes were damaged to varying degrees from fallen trees and one family has been relocated with the help of the Red Cross, Cotter told Patch early Monday afternoon. A significant rainfall created flash flooding along several streets for a brief period of time, including Tulip Street and portions of Morris Avenue, but the floodwaters quickly receded.

Cotter said the following areas had the most concentrated damage on Monday afternoon:

• Bedford Road
• Hickory Road
• Webster Avenue
• Lafayette Avenue
• Lowell Avenue
• Evergreen Road 

With any storm event such as this one, Cotter said it’s important for residents to stay indoors because more trees and wires could come down and create even more hazards.

“We want to again remind residents to stay away from any downed power lines. They should be considered live until the utility makes them safe. We just want to make sure everyone stays safe,” Cotter told Patch.

“The one concern we have going forward is that we’ve had a fair amount of rain and the ground is fairly saturated so there could be some cases where additional trees could come down. We urge the residents to continue to use caution.”

Cotter said there were crews out Monday, working to clear roadways.

“[We’re] working together with the utility companies [to] ideally get power restored as quickly as possible so any future kind of storms will not do any more damage,” Cotter said.

There was a tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service Monday between 9 and 9:30 a.m.