Thunderstorms

When the great elm beside Richard McNeil's farmhouse split apart during a windy thunderstorm Aug. 24, more than a tree was lost, the Warminster resident says. "It is something that was ours from the past," McNeil said of the 350- year-old tree whose girth spanned more than 20 feet. "I don't know any other community that has a tree of that size locally. " The elm, whose splintered remains littered McNeil's front lawn Tuesday, is listed in the Bucks County Conservancy's Registry of Historic Trees, he said.

A series of powerful thunderstorms swept across Pennsylvania and New Jersey before nightfall Thursday, knocking out electricity for tens of thousands of homes and killing a woman in northwestern Pennsylvania. Linda Button, 66, died when a falling tree crushed her car in Genesee Township, Potter County, as she sought refuge at a campsite. In the Philadelphia region, gusts exceeded 60 m.p.h. as thunderstorms produced scattered downpours, thousands of lightning strikes, and three-quarter-inch hail near Nazareth, Pa., according to the National Weather Service.

Delivery of mail funneled through the Southeastern Processing and Distribution Center in Devon was delayed yesterday after a violent early morning thunderstorm knocked out power in the area, forcing workers to sort thousands of pieces by hand. Under emergency lighting, with thunder pounding in the background, workers went through the laborious manual sorting process, working overtime into the morning. The center dispatches mail for areas in Bucks, Montgomery and Chester Counties and handles from 3.5 million to 4 million pieces a day, according to Min Kwan, manager of plant support at the center.

I've always loved thunderstorms. I've frequently gathered my children in a huddle, perched safely on the steps of our garage, to watch Mother Nature's free light show. We'd view the awesome display and enjoy the cool breeze that often accompanies sudden storms. That cozy feeling, however, disappeared with a personal taste of Mother Nature's wrath. In an angry storm, lightning bolts crackled and thunder boomed at a frenzied pace. My house rocked from a bolt that danced just a little too close.

They waited for hours to say goodbye: the now-elderly members of the Silent Majority in veterans' caps and white shoes; middle-aged men and women who 25 years ago filled the streets in rage over Vietnam; young people who had never known firsthand the anguish of Watergate. To some, Richard Milhous Nixon will always be the great statesman whose name was stained by a single mistake. To others, even in death, he was still "Tricky Dick," the political personification of evil. Yesterday, the debate over Nixon's place in history continued as thousands of people, both friends and foes, lined up beneath stormy skies to pay their respects as Nixon's body was returned to lie in state near the small clapboard house where he was born 81 years ago. "He was a great man. Maybe he had his faults, but he was the country's greatest leader," said Robert Caton, a retired accountant who drove from nearby Whittier with his wife, Mary, to pay their respects.

The ducklings could not have known the kind of day the Hurffville Company firefighters were having Sunday. A one-hour thunderstorm struck the southeast section of the township about 4:45 p.m., leveling a driving-range building and knocking trees into seven houses. Lightning struck a barn on Egg Harbor Road, causing a fire that was contained in a few hours. Hurffville Company firefighters had handled 18 calls related to the storm when they got the call from the Cardinal Retirement Village.

Fast-moving thunderstorms knocked out power to nearly 50,000 Peco Energy customers yesterday afternoon, downing power lines and snapping trees. The solid line of thunderstorms cut from Harrisburg to Lancaster to Allentown to New Jersey. Hardest hit was northern Chester County, where 19,000 customers lost power, said Peco spokesman David Hackney. Outages affected 17,500 customers in Montgomery County and 12,000 in Bucks. Power outages in Philadelphia and Delaware County were negligible.

Eastwind Airlines remains in business in Philadelphia, despite hitting turbulence in recent days because of weather-related flight cancellations and cutbacks in its service elsewhere, the carrier's president said yesterday. President Terry Hallcom, the airline-industry veteran who took charge of Eastwind last fall, said flights scheduled Monday between Philadelphia and Orlando, Fla., were scrubbed because of thunderstorms to the west of the city, which caused delays for other airlines as well.

For the second time in two days, powerful thunderstorms ripped through the region yesterday with heavy downpours and high winds that took out power lines and tree limbs. No injuries were reported, but there was extensive property damage in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, where the fire station remained without power last night and as many as 50 trees were felled. In Salem County, gusts of up to 60 m.p.h. were recorded, and about 4,700 electric customers in South Jersey lost power.

Peco Energy crews were working yesterday to restore electric power to 46,000 customers in the Philadelphia suburbs left without service in the wake of Sunday night's thunderstorm. And efforts continued to assist those who lost power during last week's flooding. High winds and driving rain knocked down trees Sunday night, causing power outages to customers in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties, said Peco spokeswoman Cathy Engel. At midday, there were fewer than 200 customers still without power in Bucks and Chester Counties, but all were expected to be back online by last night, Engel said.