The whipping winds and powerful gusts over 60 mph hit the North East community especially hard.
A tall pine tree toppled onto the roof at the back of Sander's Market grocery store late Tuesday morning. Dry Wall Sanders
The falling tree brought down wires, snapped a power pole and pulled down a large transformer, punching holes in the roof of the receiving area of the business.
That sent flooding rains inside that area of the store.
According to Jake Sander who owns the market along with his brother Mark, some 40 employees and customers were inside the store when the tree came crashing down, but no one got hurt. " We just heard a big crash and all the lights went out, we came to the back service area where the vendors come in, one of the neighbor's big pine trees came down, unfortunately across one of our bread guys trucks."
Although the store was damaged, lost power and had to close, Sander said it could have been much worse. "It could have been out in the customer area, customers could have got hurt, employees could have got hurt so, at this point everything's fixable, looks like it's going to be a while but just thankful that everybody was out of harm's way," he added.
Nearby, several trees came tumbling down across Route 5 between Freeport and Orchard Beach Roads. One tree fell right in front of our news camera.
Electric Hand Sander Pennsylvania State Police officers who had closed the road temporarily, decided to keep it closed until the winds die down. "Actually one of the Penndot's workers just got finished cutting up one of the trees when a tree fell right on top of the tree he just got done cutting up," said Cpl. Nicholas Stolar, "so we just made the decision for safety, we have to close this down, people are going to run into those trees if they keep driving this road."