Violent storms across Northeast kill 2

MONTCLAIR, N.J. --Thousands remained without power Wednesday following a night of violent storms across the Northeast that left two people dead, sparked a massive fire and shut down some rail service.

The buzz of chain saws echoed across the region as residents cleaned up tree limbs that blocked roads and crashed through homes.

Laura Sammarco, 74, said she was sitting in her Montclair home Tuesday night "when hell broke loose." Two big trees fell near her brick home, breaking windows. Branches and wires littered her front lawn.

"I heard all this crackling, and the lights went out," she said. "It was very, very eerie and very scary."

In southeast Pennsylvania, falling trees caused two deaths Tuesday. Barbara Cooper, 57, of Coatesville, was killed when she apparently ran outside to put the windows up on a vehicle, police said. Joan Graf, 73, of Charleston, S.C., was killed when a tree fell on her car in South Coatesville.

In northeastern Vermont, about a dozen people at a Buddhist retreat near Barnet were injured when a severe thunderstorm knocked down trees and power lines, officials said. Power was restored to most of the region Wednesday.

In Providence, R.I., a 600-foot tanker was unloading gasoline when lightning struck nearby and set off a fire on the dock. The boat was able to pull away safely. Lightning flashed overhead as firefighters poured water onto the flames. No injuries were reported.

Severe weather also moved across the country's midsection Wednesday night.

In St. Louis, winds near 80 mph blew out press box windows and ripped the tarp at new Busch Stadium before the start of the game between the Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals. Thirty people were injured, including five fans who were taken to hospitals, according to Norm Corley, a supervisor with Accu-Care, which handles medical issues at the stadium. The start of the game was delayed.

The winds were blamed for knocking windows out of a rooftop restaurant, downing trees and power lines, and ripping off a section of roof from the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. Three people were injured when a building collapsed in St. Louis, and MetroLink, the city's light rail system, was down said Police Chief Joe Mokwa.

In the Northeast, power was restored to tens of thousands of homes and businesses, but thousands more could be left in the dark until the weekend, utility officials said Wednesday.

In New York's Westchester County, Consolidated Edison power company spokeswoman Sandy Miller described damage from trees as "tremendous."

"We're going to be rebuilding electrical systems on some streets," she said.

The storms ended a heat wave that had kept the region sweltering for several days.

In New Jersey, a utility offered free water and ice at Wal-Mart stores for more than 7,000 customers still without power Wednesday evening, down from 90,000 overnight, said Jersey Central Power & Light spokesman Ron Morano. Most were expected to have service by midnight, with the rest up on Thursday morning, he said.

The morning commute from New Jersey to New York City was slowed to a crawl by trees that fell across tracks. Repairs to the power and signal lines were completed by early afternoon and normal service resumed at 3 p.m.

In the Philadelphia area, utility crews gradually restored service Wednesday to the more than 400,000 customers who lost electricity. Peco Energy reported 220,000 customers remained without power, down from 365,000.

PPL Electric Utilities, which serves parts of eastern and central Pennsylvania, suffered more than 44,000 outages at the peak of the storm, but expected to have service fully restored by early Thursday.

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Associated Press Writers Jim Fitzgerald in White Plains, N.Y., Jim Salter, Cheryl Wittenauer, Jim Suhr and R.B. Fallstrom in St. Louis and David Twiddy in Kansas City contributed to this report.