Damage was widespread and extensive along the entire path of the derecho, especially in northern Indiana and the Fort Wayne metro area, central and western Ohio, northeastern Kentucky, southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, northern, central, and southwestern Virginia, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Delaware and southern New Jersey. In all the mentioned areas, many trees uprooted or snapped, roofs became damaged, tents deployed to sell fireworks leading up to the
4th of July Holiday collapsed, and power outages were extensive, with over 4.2 million customers losing power as a result. An Appalachian Power representative described the power outage as the worst the company had ever seen. At least ten of those deaths were in Virginia, all of them due to fallen trees. As it occurred in the midst of the record
Summer 2012 North American heat wave, conditions on following days were problematic, particularly for seniors and vulnerable people. Scattered structural damage also occurred along the path of the derecho, from both falling trees and the winds themselves. Some of the damage included siding was torn off houses, roofs removed from houses, businesses and apartment buildings,
mobile homes heavily damaged, barns and garages destroyed and
airplanes flipped. The storm was more damaging to the power grid and more severe in terms of wind gusts than
Hurricane Ike, which hit the area in
September 2008 with sustained winds and gusts after slightly re-intensifying over Indiana, making it both the largest power outage and the largest power outage not related to a hurricane in AEP Ohio history. Wind gusts with this derecho were closer to , and, though of a significantly shorter duration, caused more damage to trees and power lines than Ike. In
Bellefontaine, the storm's strength was sufficient to cause severe damage to the tower of
the county courthouse, a reinforced
sandstone structure. In fact, this derecho was so destructive that
Accuweather compared its destruction to that of
Hurricane Irene, and
The Weather Channel compared it to hurricane damage in general. Many lost power for 5 days, some much longer.
West Virginia In West Virginia, about 672,000 customers lost electricity. Governor
Earl Ray Tomblin of
West Virginia declared a state of emergency after the storm. All but two of the state's 55 counties sustained some damage or loss of power. At peak, more than half of the state's customers were without power. Around 70 high voltage power lines were downed. The derecho's aftermath was arguably more difficult in West Virginia than anywhere else. Power restoration was very slow and outages extremely long, as a result of the sparse and scattered population, mountainous terrain, difficult conditions in extreme heat and need for crews over a large area; in many cases the outages lasted longer than two weeks. The
American Red Cross shipped tens of thousands of meals to the state, along with large quantities of water to residents in entire communities that were isolated as a result. It also caused a gas outage in 5 counties.
Pennsylvania Across Pennsylvania, 32,500 customers lost power.
Virginia About 1 million customers lost power in Virginia, which was the largest outage in the state's history not related to a hurricane, and third largest outage including hurricanes, after
Hurricane Isabel in
2003 and
Hurricane Irene in
2011. The outages also affected an
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud datacenter in
Northern Virginia, which caused
Instagram,
Pinterest, and
Netflix to experience significant outages. In
Franklin County, Virginia, southeast of
Roanoke, a volunteer firefighter was killed by a falling tree while responding to an emergency. In the
Roanoke Valley area, upwards of 65,000 residents in
Roanoke,
Lynchburg, and
Danville lost power. 911 emergency service was disrupted for over two million customers in Virginia and West Virginia, with the greatest concentration of outages occurring in Northern Virginia and some customers experiencing 911 outages for several days. These outages were due to telephone switching equipment failing after a disruptive combination of power outages and power surges.
Washington, D.C., and Maryland Approximately 68,000 customers were without power in
Washington, D.C., and roughly 1,600,000 customers lost power in Maryland, including some in each of the state's counties. Water restrictions were also enacted in
Montgomery County and
Prince George's County in Maryland after the water supplies in those heavily populated suburban counties lost power. A Washington, D.C., man was electrocuted and his wife critically injured when they went outside to check the damage to their house from a fallen tree. The
AT&T National golf tournament at
Congressional Country Club was also slowed due to severe tree damage on the course. Governor
Martin O'Malley of
Maryland declared a state of emergency after the storm. As of July 6, over 4800 tons of storm debris had been collected in Montgomery County, Maryland, with collection ongoing. In Baltimore (city) and Baltimore County, the widespread damage left large trees uprooted and traffic patterns disrupted. Throughout the Northern Baltimore (city) area neighborhoods experienced disrupted traffic patterns as large trees felled by the storm blocked secondary arterial roadways. Residential damage was heavy throughout the area from aging and weakened large growth trees uprooted during the storm crushing cars and damaging residential roofs. Power outages were widespread, with some neighborhoods north of Northern Parkway waiting up to ten days for full power restoration.
New Jersey In
South Jersey,
Atlantic City Electric reported that 206,000 customers lost power from downed trees. Most of the outages were in
Atlantic County, which prompted a county-wide state of emergency. Near
Atlantic City, a boater died while trying to bring his vessel ashore. Officials believed that lightning struck a 104-year-old church in
Longport and caused a fire that damaged the building. Two boys were killed when a tree fell on their tent in
Parvin State Park. In
Vineland, damage was preliminarily estimated at $125 million. On July 19, 2012, President Obama declared three counties in New Jersey (Atlantic, Cumberland, and Salem) federal disaster areas. This assured disaster relief through federal assistance to local and state governments and some non-profit organizations. ==See also==