Windstorm lashes Riverside area

(Wed Aug 18 10am update:  All roads reopened, though road crews may occasionally block a lane.  Tree removal and cleanup still underway, especially in Butler apartments)

(Tue Aug 17 10am update:  Harrison, Sycamore have been cleared and reopened.  Faculty Road is still closed from Washington to Harrison, and Hartley is also blocked as crews work to clear out the remaining fallen trees.  A downed power line keeps Cedar Lane closed from Southern Way to Sycamore.)

A sudden, brief, but powerful burst of wind, torrential rain and hail struck the Riverside area of Princeton Monday evening, around 5pm.  Within minutes, fallen trees and branches had downed several power lines in the area, blocked a number of roads including South Harrison St., Sycamore Road and Faculty Road, and made the neighborhood impassable.  Several homes and vehicles in the area were damaged.  Many trees also fell within Princeton University’s Butler Apartments.  Princeton University established temporary shelter in the Frist Campus Center for Butler residents who could not safely go home.

While much of Princeton experienced the heavy rains, the extreme winds were very localized, limiting the storm damage to an area bounded by Nassau Street and Faculty Road.  One emergency worker referred to the storm as a “mesocyclone”, an intense vortex of air that can be associated with severe thunderstorms.  A severe weather alert had been issued for the Princeton area earlier that afternoon.

By 8pm, power was restored to some of the hundreds of PSE&G customers who had been left in the dark, and traffic was once again moving along Harrison Road.  Township police say there were no reported injuries or deaths as a result of the storm.

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About the Author

Donna Liu

Founder, AllPrinceton

Donna Liu is a digital journalist who has lived in Princeton with her family since 2002.  She founded AllPrinceton in 2010 as an online hub for community news and information.  At Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, she built UChannel - an online archive of public affairs lectures in academia.  Before that she established and managed CNN International's Asia Production Center in Hong Kong.