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Downburst Topples Trees in Belgrade

May 08, 2010 - BELGRADE -- Downbursts from quick moving thunderstorms this week toppled and uprooted trees along Main Street in Belgrade Lakes village.


Downbursts, according to the National Weather Service, are bursts of intense winds that can flatten buildings and knock down trees during strong or severe thunderstorms.


The first storm, Monday, caused trees to fall on a cabin near the dam in the village and on a home at 78 Main St. owned by Tim Yotides.


A second storm that moved through Thursday afternoon knocked down a line of trees in front of a summer residence on Long Pond, ripping the roots right out of the ground. A huge branch also fell across Main Street -- also known as Route 27 -- taking out electrical wires.


Homes in the area Thursday lost electricity Thursday for about 2 1/2 hours, according to Mark Day, captain of the Belgrade Lakes fire unit. Traffic had to be diverted while a Central Maine Power Company crew repaired the lines.


It was the second outage of the day. Around 11 a.m. Thursday, a car hit a utility pole in Oakland, killing the driver and knocking out power to about 4,500 Central Maine Power Co. customers.


Jim Hayes, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Gray, said emergency management officials reported both storms to the weather service.


"Both cases were fast moving thunderstorms that produced strong winds as they moved through the area," Hayes said Friday. "What happens with downbursts, basically, wind from above comes down and hits the ground then spreads out. In a situation like that, you're looking at 60-mph winds."


These winds, known as downbursts, are often mistaken for tornadoes because of the severity of the damage, he said. A downburst features air diving toward the ground, whereas a tornado is composed of rising air.


Hayes said the storms came out of the western mountains and moved through the lakes region. Whenever the jet stream travels right over head, he said there's always the chance of strong gusty winds.


Yotides said Monday's storm hit around 4 p.m. when he was busy feeding his young son, Spiro.


"We were in the house so I didn't see the dark clouds coming," Yotides said. "It just happened all of a sudden. Everything came down and water started pouring into the house. It was like somebody had hoses in the windows. It was bizarre. We just scattered around, then all of a sudden we heard a boom. It shook the house and there was a tree in my bedroom. It landed on my bed."


Within 10 minutes, he said the storm had passed and the sun came back out.


His insurance company estimated the damage to be around $40,000.


"My agent told me to go out and take plenty of pictures," he said. "It was sunny when I was out there and I thought to myself, nobody is going to believe this."


Yotides, who owns Christy's Country Store in Belgrade with his brother, Tony, said Nick Nichols owns the summer resident on Long Pond that had all the trees uprooted.


"They live in New Jersey," he said. "I called them, but I'm not sure what they're going to do. It's going to be costly. Trees are expensive to get rid of, especially when they're uprooted like that."


Amanda Byron Zink said her husband, Robert Zink, drove up from their home in New York City after they heard their summer cottage next to the dam had been crushed by a tree.


She said a 100-foot pine tree snapped in half.


"It fell on the main support beam," Byron Zink said. "The good news is that we put a dormer on a few years ago, and it stopped it from falling down into the living room. It damaged the upstairs bedroom loft area and snapped all the major support beams.


"I'm just thankful that none of us were there. We were supposed to come up this weekend to open the cabin. We have rentals all season."


Contractors estimated the damage to be around $60,000, she said.


Day said the report of a limb across Main Street on Thursday came in around 6 p.m. Residents did not get their electricity back until about 8:30 p.m., he said.


The home of Bill Pulsifer, deputy fire chief, is about 200 feet from where the limb crossed the lane.


"I saw some cars stopping and park by the boat barn," Pulsifer said. "When I came out of the house I saw the road was blocked. A couple of firefighters arrived on the scene with fire trucks to divert traffic."


Pulsifer said there were a lot of people at the Village Inn that had to go around the Watson Pond Road or Route 225 on the other side of Long Pond to get home.


"CMP arrived fairly quickly," he said. "Three wires were down ... but it didn't do any damage to the telephone cables. When the first storm came through (on Monday) we didn't lose any power during that one."

by Mechele Cooper, May 8, 2010, Kennebec Journal

Lakes: Long Pond
Regions: Belgrade


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