The storms – widespread, long-lived wind storms associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms – snapped trees in half, tore others out of the ground and sent many of them into power lines, mostly around Ohio County.

As of Tuesday afternoon, 13,689 AEP customers were without power, down from 16,378 on Tuesday morning. AEP spokeswoman Joelle Moray said her company’s meteorologists said the storms were a “double derecho,” with one coming shortly after the other. Southern West Virginia dealt with a derecho in the summer of 2012 that caused widespread damage and left many without power for days.

Wheeling got two of those back to back.

“The only word I can use for that is ‘unprecedented,'” Moray said.

photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Crews spend Tuesday afternoon cutting away downed trees at Wheeling Park. A pair of derechos wrecked parts of Wheeling early Tuesday morning, uprooting some trees and snapping others in half. Wheeling Park bore the brunt of the storm's damage.

Because the damage was so extensive and widespread, Moray said early Tuesday afternoon that AEP did not have a timetable for when power would be restored. WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital’s power was restored at about 3:45 p.m., and Moray said about 800 customers in Elm Grove regained power Tuesday afternoon.

The National Weather Service in Pittsburgh confirmed the double-derecho call. Lee Hendricks, a meteorologist for the NWS, said derechos can involve numerous downbursts, powerful winds aimed directly at the ground as part of severe thunderstorms.

“They’re an evolution of thunderstorms, characterized by having very fast, forward speed to them, sometimes 50-plus miles per hour, leading in the directions the storms are moving,” Hendricks said. “When those storms collapse, you end up having downbursts ahead of them, and you can get winds 65 to 75 miles per hour, quite easily. They tend to have paths where you’ll see a series of downbursts in the path of the derecho’s area.

“Conditions were, unfortunately, great yesterday for getting some thunderstorms and downbursts.”

Hendricks said that most local wind speed data comes from airports, and that exact data was not available regarding the night’s storms. However, he estimated that winds could have exceeded 60 mph on the ground in the area.

photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Crews spend Tuesday afternoon cutting away downed trees at Wheeling Park. A pair of derechos wrecked parts of Wheeling early Tuesday morning, uprooting some trees and snapping others in half. Wheeling Park bore the brunt of the storm's damage.

While the storms may have dissipated by mid-morning Tuesday, the next few days are expected to bring punishing heat and humidity. Hendricks said to expect temperatures in the mid-90s, exacerbated by the humidity for a heat index of more than 100 degrees.

Ohio County Emergency Management Agency officials have announced cooling stations will be set up at WesBanco Arena and at the nearby Public Market business to assist those in need.

Assistant EMA Director Tony Campbell said an additional site could be set up in South Wheeling if electric service is restored there.

“We’re just waiting for the power to come back on,” he said.

Restoring power with such oppressive heat and humidity coming becomes even more crucial.

photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Crews spend Tuesday afternoon cutting away downed trees at Wheeling Park. A pair of derechos wrecked parts of Wheeling early Tuesday morning, uprooting some trees and snapping others in half. Wheeling Park bore the brunt of the storm's damage.

Moray said AEP will call in crews from out of the area to help with power restoration. She estimated that 300 to 500 people making up 100 to 120 crews will be out, including tree trimmers and other forestry employees.

Essential services like hospitals, emergency services and water pumping stations will go back online first, Moray said. AEP assessors will be out inspecting areas to decide which areas are safe enough to restore power. Larger outage areas likely will be restored first.

Moray said that, while she understands people’s curiosity with the storm damage, extreme caution must be taken.

“People should assume that everything that is down is energized, that there could be a live power line in a downed tree limb,” she said.

Moray also emphasized that, when drivers come upon a traffic signal that is out of power, that intersection should be treated as a four-way stop.

photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Crews spend Tuesday afternoon cutting away downed trees at Wheeling Park. A pair of derechos wrecked parts of Wheeling early Tuesday morning, uprooting some trees and snapping others in half. Wheeling Park bore the brunt of the storm's damage.

City of Wheeling Operations Superintendent Steve Johnston said that the worst of the damage seemed to be in a diagonal line from the area near Greenwood Cemetery into Springdale. Wheeling Park also is dealing with numerous downed trees and limbs.

Crews were still assessing damage, Johnston said, coordinating efforts with the Wheeling Police Department and utility companies.

“We’re trying to clear the streets for emergency vehicles, obviously,” he said. “We’re even trying to do that for sanitation so people can have their trash picked up. But we’re working with the other departments and working with the National Weather Service to find out when the weather may turn on us again.”

Johnston said city crews also were making sure culverts were cleared to avoid localized flooding.

The severe weather arrived 32 years to the day after drenching rains falling on already saturated soil caused deadly flash flooding on Wegee and Pipe creeks in the Shadyside area. On June 14, 1990, 26 people died as a result of that flooding.

photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Crews spend Tuesday afternoon cutting away downed trees at Wheeling Park. A pair of derechos wrecked parts of Wheeling early Tuesday morning, uprooting some trees and snapping others in half. Wheeling Park bore the brunt of the storm's damage.