Roofers Slammed By Storm; Heed Those Severe Warnings, Folks!

Screen shot of construction workers hunkering down on a roof
as sheets of plywood fly by during a severe thunderstorm in
Nashville, Tennesee on Sunday. 

A month or so after a terrible tornado, a wicked severe thunderstorm rolled through Nashville, Tennessee on Sunday.

There wasn't a tornado this time, but it didn't matter. The National Weather Service office there recorded a wind gust of 72 mph during the storm, and I'm sure a couple places around the metro area reported winds of around 80 mph.

So yes, it was very dangerous.

National Weather Service in Nashville saw the storm coming and issued warnings well in advance, telling people to get indoors or else.

Anyone should have been wise to heed the warnings.  The storm proved once again that a severe thunderstorm warning is as serious as a tornado warning.

At least one person died in the storm, and there was a lot of property damage. The Tennessean reported at least 100,000 people were left without electricity from the storm, which is nearly double the number left without power in the tornadoes awhile back.

Quite a few buildings and houses were damaged or destroyed, and it seems like a zillion trees blew down.

Then there were the four roofers. I don't know if they didn't hear the storm warnings or just didn't heed them but they kept working as the dangerous storm approached.

A house was under construction in South Nashville, and the roofers were hammering plywood on what would become the three-story structure's roof.

They must have seen and heard the storm coming, as everyone in the neighborhood scurried inside as the skies darkened. But the roofers kept working, apparently wanting to get this Sunday job done as fast as possible.

As you can see in the video at the bottom of this post, that was a mistake.

According to television station WSMV, a neighbor, Tiffany Holt was filming the approaching storm from inside her home, near a window.

The storm hit in dramatic fashion with a wall of wind and rain. Several large sheets of plywood flew off the construction site, narrowly missing the roofers. One of those sheets of plywood might have actually hit one of  them, judging from the video.

The roofers lay down, and at least one of them fell through an opening in the unfinished roof ito the room below.   Meanwhile, blinding sheets of rain, mixed with roofing shingles, pieces of gutters and siding and tree branches continued to race by in the wind.

Holt said she could hear the men screaming in terror,

Luckily the storm was a fast mover and soon tapered off. She saw the men climb down after the storm eased and they were OK.

'We talked to them they were right here and said do you want to come in and take shelter. They wanted to get in the car and get out. So they were fine," Holt told WSMV. 

Yeah, but they were lucky they didn't get clobbered by one of those sheets of plywood. Coulda killed them.

When you hear a severe thunderstorm warning (None expected this week in Vermont, that's for sure!) get indoors and stay there until the danger passes.  These storms can be super dangerous.

Watch:

Destructive Flooding In Vermont Ongoing From Potent Storm

Winooski River to go into rare, serious major flood stage today
in Essex Junction, Vermont

We've got some serious flooding going on around Vermont and neighboring areas this morning as last night's storm really poured an unexpectedly huge amount of water down on us.

There is quite a bit of flooding going on statewide, but the worst of it seems to be north of Route 4 and from from the east slopes of the Green Mountains through the Champlain Valley into parts of northeastern New York.

By the way, this storm ain't over.  It won't rain much more, but high winds are now a problem. I'll get to that further down in the post.

Since I'm in the heart of this flood zone, I am now incredibly happy we had a very sturdy new culvert installed under the driveway this past summer. The little brook that goes through there went wild last night, but a quick property tour with the dogs this morning revealed no damage.  The culvert and the surrounding rocks held perfectly. There's no water in the basement, either.



Missisquoi River at North Troy also going into major flood stage today.
This will flood houses in East Berkshire. 

Not so for many people around the state.  Reports were obviously still sketchy as of 6:30 this morning,  since this happened overnight when a lot of people were sleeping. But I'm sure a number of houses and other properties are flood damaged this morning.

We do know a lot of roads are closed due to flooding. Vermont rivers like the Winooski and Missisquoi that had been expected to cause minor nuisance flooding today are now going into  major flood mode.

Water from the Missisquoi will go into homes in East Berkshire today, if they haven't already.

For these two rivers, they will probably be at their highest level since 2011's Tropical Storm Irene.

I bet there's damage to buildings along the west slopes of the Green Mountains, especially around Jonesville and Richmond along the Winooski River, which is going into major flood. Most of Route 2 will be under water today from Bolton to Essex Junction.

Road closures are too numerous to count.  My road, Route 36 in St. Albans, is usually busy but strangely quiet this morning. I found out why: Route 36 is closed by flooding around ten miles east of my house.

There was also significant flash flooding overnight in urban areas like Burlington, Winooski and St. Albans, so I'm sure there's at least some wet basements in those towns.

Part of the employee parking lot of Gardener's Supply in Burlington was
flooded when I arrived at work this morning. First time I've seen that.
The parking area for retail customers is high and dry so anybody
who wants to shop today still can.

Street flooding along Williston Road in South Burlington trapped at least one car. Video from WVNY/WFFF showed high water on Riverside Avenue in Burlington, with flooding possibly entering businesses there.  

The rain has tapered off, so the urban street flooding has subsided. 

Nighttime flash flooding is especially dangerous, because motorists don't see high water or missing bridges or washouts until it is too late.  So far, I have not heard of any serious injuries or deaths. Let's keep it that way.

I'm sure we'll have updates on the extent of the damage as we go through the morning.

Rainfall has been something else for sure. Burlington was deluged with 3.3 inches of rain, making it the second wettest October day on record.

The flooding was made worse by a lot of  rain before this storm. Including last night's deluge, Burlington picked up 8.5 inches of rain this October, easily making it the wettest October on record.

Damaging floods can occur at any time in Vermont, but it's somewhat unusual to have a bad one in the late autumn. (That said, the worst flood in Vermont history happened on Nov. 3-4, 1927.)

HIGH WINDS

Aside from the ongoing flooding, high winds will be a problem today. As of 6:30 this morning, about 16,000 utility customers were without electricity.  The winds will blow pretty hard regionwide, but the strongest gusts will be in northern New York and to a slightly lesser extent the east slopes of the Green Mountains.

Those areas are already where the most power outages are.  Watertown, New York was already gusting to 61 mph early this morning with gusts to 56 mph on Burton Island in Lake Champlain.

Winds will taper off later today, which is good news. Also, I'm not seeing any signs of any new big storms in the near future. Just little ones. And a trend towards colder weather, too.

Already Causing Damage, Epic Northeast U.S. Storm To Get Much Worse Today

Tree on a house in Milton, Massachusetts this morning, in
this image from WBZ via Twitter. Expect lots more wind
damage in the Northeast today.

Early this morning, the long-awaited severe storm in the Northeast was consolidating off the New Jersey coast and intensifying rapidly - bombing out, as they say.

Weather conditions are getting worse, as expected, and today will be a wild ride of destructive winds, even worse coastal storm surges and battering waves, flooding rains and punishing, heavy wet snow.

This will be a day to remember in much of the Northeast.

Before the storm had really had a chance to intensify to full strength early this morning. In the eastern United States, roughly 400,000 homes and businesses were already without power as of 6 a.m. That number will surely increase big time.

A tree had fallen onto a house in Maryland, trapping a 100-year-old man, who was later rescued and taken to the hospital with injuries.

Around Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia, the National Weather Service is not messing around with warnings. The high wind warnings and special weather statements down there say to expect a prolonged period of wind gusts to 60 or 70 mph, with winds now dying down to below 30 mph until Sunday.

Winds have already gusted to 67 mph at Dulles airport.

So it will take forever to get power restored. A special weather statement from the NWS has this to say to people in Washington DC, Maryland and surrounding areas: "Pedestrians will face very hazardous conditions, and need to be aware of wind-borne projectiles. People should avoid being outside in forested areas and around trees and branches. If possible, remain in the lower levels of your home during the windstorm, and avoid windows."

That's not your routine high wind alert, is it?  Many businesses are closed as a precaution, as are all federal offices in the Washington DC area.

As of 6 a.m., there were already many reports of wind damage in the Mid-Atlantic states, and the wind intensity will only rise today as the storm intensifies.

Early this morning in southern New England, wind gusts were "only" mostly in the 35 to 50 mph category, but as the storm ramps up, winds are likely to gust as high as 80 mph along the coast and 50 mph as far west as the Berkshires.

In mid and higher elevations of Massachusetts, especially from Worcester County west, the heavy snow and high winds guarantee lots of fallen trees and power lines.

All eyes, of course, are on the coast, where the worst destruction will occur. The forecast hasn't changed, and coastal areas from North Carolina to New England are in for a terrible battering today and tomorrow.

In Massachusetts, they're still bracing for possible record high storm surges and immense waves that will destroy houses and flood large areas. Since this will happen through three or four high tide cycles today through Saturday, the damage could end up being immense.

If New England gets lucky, the most intense part of the storm could hit at low tide, which would help, but don't count on it.

The worst of the heavy, wet snow is hitting a good portion of central and western New York, on down into the Catskills. It's also seriously affecting many areas of inland Connecticut, Massachusetts and southern Vermont. A few places in New York State might end up with two feet of new snow.

Thundersnow was reported in western New York last night. Some areas of that region and the Catskills already had 10 inches of new snow by dawn.

It's possible enough cooling will bring snow even to the coast in New York and New Jersey today. We'll see.

This is one scary storm

VERMONT EFFECTS

The forecast for today hasn't changed much for Vermont, with northern sections of the state escaping with just typically lousy March weather. Some places way up near the Canadian border might not get much snow or cold rain at all.

As of 8 a.m., snow had spread as far north as Burlington, Vermont, but Milton, just a few miles to the north, had no snow.

Southern Vermont, though, is in for a pasting with heavy, wet snow, wind and power failures. Schools in that part of the state are closed, as you'd expect. According to the Vermont Outage Map, there were more than 1,600 homes and businesses without power already in southeastern Vermont.

A winter storm warning is still in effect for far southern Vermont today.