David Caldwell's weekly roundup
of news affecting Blacklick Valley

Football playoff
Forest Hills, 12; Central Cambria, 6

Spooky weather

Blacklick Valley along with the rest of Cambria County and surrounding counties feared this week that the ghosts and goblins of Halloween decided to wreak havoc on the power lines and trees, especially in the higher elevations. At least that is what seemed to be happening when a cold front slid down from the north and combined with a light rain to coat tree limbs and power lines with ice. The fact that many trees still have leaves compounded the problem and caused many limbs and trees to crash to the ground in a seemingly never ending crescendo through Tuesday night, all day Wednesday, and into Thursday when the sun broke through and melted some of the ice.

Trees in a Jackson Township yard last week. The fall foliage ranged from green to brown, red, yellow, and ice-white. Photos by Pat Caldwell

Many trees and limbs fell across power lines and left many homes in the dark. The Finntown section of Jackson Township, for instance, was without electricity for nearly five hours Wednesday evening. Although work crews had to remove limbs from local lines, the outage was caused by ice damage to a Penelec substation.

The roads never did get bad. However, the road crews kept busy removing trees and limbs that blocked traffic. The damage to power lines in the Ebensburg area was so great that Penelec scheduled an outage at 2:30 pm Thursday to allow their work crews, which they enhanced with workers from Ohio and eastern Pennsylvania, to work safely. They turned the power back on for Ebensburg at 5:30, but the Colver area was without power till late Thursday evening. Central Cambria canceled school Thursday because of the power outage.

While this freakish, late-October ice storm caused much damage and inconvenience in Cambria County, it was not as severe as what Bedford and Somerset counties received. Heavily traveled, east-west routes 56 and 30 were closed for nearly a day because of downed trees and power lines. Many homes still did not have power restored by Friday. In many cases, falling trees and limbs pulled electrical wires and boxes off the houses. Somerset area schools closed because buses could not make their runs and many businesses failed to open because they couldn't operate without power.

No one has ventured an estimate of damage to local timber stands but it has to be significant. Individual homeowners will note the cost when they begin cleaning up and replacing damaged trees and shrubs. On a trip around the streets of Ebensburg, it was difficult to find a single property that didn't suffer some damage to ornamental plants and trees. Most people just grimaced when asked whether they thought this storm was the precursor to a hard winter. Some liked the idea of blaming it on Halloween spooks.

Around town

On a positive note, Mark Williams of the Nanty Glo Recreation Authority announced the receipt of a $5,000 grant that will allow the Authority to purchase and install a water slide by next summer. On the negative side, vandals tossed the port-a-john into the Blacklick Creek along with a bench and bulletin board, which were located at the entrance to the Ghost Town Trail.

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