Strong Winds Uproot Trees, Damage Roof At The Village At Newtown

NEWTOWN, PA — A severe thunderstorm roared through parts of Bucks County Saturday evening knocking out power to thousands, uprooting trees and damaging buildings.

In Newtown Township, it may have spawned a small tornado as it whipped across the parking lot at the Village at Newtown Shopping Center and then tore off a section of the center’s decorative roof sending it crashing down onto a row of parked cars.

It was dinner time and Harvest Regional Grill was filled with diners when the storm rolled in.

A piece of the roof hangs down in back of the shopping center. Other debris landed on several parked cars. (photo by Jeff Werner)

One of the bar keeps told Patch that everyone was enjoying their dinner when their phones started buzzing with the tornado warning issued for Bucks County by the National Weather Service.

“A few minutes go by and bang - lightning, thunder. The power goes off and comes right back on,” he says.

"The clouds come in and the sky got completely black. It started hailing. Out in the parking lot you could see all these leaves start to swirl - faster and faster. Next thing you know there’s a very small cyclone coming right over the parking lot. It got really quiet (inside the bar) and we backed away from the windows.”

As the wind whipped across the parking lot making a bee-line toward Party Fair it uprooted two substantial trees leaving their roots exposed to the parking lot.

An uprooted tree in the parking lot of the shopping center. (photo by Jeff Werner)

The employees and the diners inside didn't realize that the same swirling wind had also torn off part of the shopping center's decorative roof line and sent it crashing down onto a row of parked cars.

Behind the shopping center, just off of Ice Cream Alley, part of the shopping center’s decorative roofing was laying on top of multiple cars parked along back of the building. Many of the cars were owned by Harvest employees, according to a Harvest manager.

A piece of the decorative roof hung down from the roof of the shopping center. Nearby at least four cars were covered in roofing debris.

“It happened so fast. The storm rolled in and then it was out of here. We were just shocked to see what happened out back,” said the employee.

“You never know what life is going to throw at you,” the employee added. “It could have been so much worse. Someone could have been in one of those cars or worse yet it could have taken out the building and the restaurant.”

(photo by Jeff Werner)

Harvest management blocked off the parking lot and were waiting for PECO to arrive to take care of several live wires. The managers of the shopping center were also notified of the damage.

“We are so lucky that no one was hurt. Everything is okay,” said a Harvest manager, adding that the restaurant was never forced to close and would be open regular hours on Sunday.

The rest of the shopping center also appeared unaffected by the storm damage, which was confined to the roof line, the back parking lot and the two toppled trees in the main parking lot.

The storm also knocked down down a 50 foot tall tree at a home on Washington Avenue in nearby Newtown Borough. And another felled tree was hanging on some wires just around the corner on Chancellor Street.

(Photo by Jeff Werner)