The northern portion of Gloucester County was hardest hit when wind and rain took out trees and cut power to thousands of homes Tuesday.
MANTUA -- Jean DuBois looked out her front door on Tuesday afternoon, pointing to where a railing used to line her front steps. A total of four trees had come down on her property, one of which punctured the roof of her house.
Strong winds during an afternoon thunderstorm brought down trees and powerlines throughout most of South Jersey. Readers in Salem, Cumberland, Gloucester and Camden county wrote in describing downed trees, roof damage and power outages.
Around northern Gloucester County, public works employees and emergency responders were handling numerous complaints of tree damage. Gloucester County's communications center received 125 calls to local fire departments, 252 calls to police and 150 calls to 911.
"I've never heard anything like that in my life," said DuBois, a former county freeholder. Her lawn was littered with branches and splintered tree trunks.
She had heard an earsplitting noise just after noon, and peered out her front door to find that the walk across her yard was impassable.
"I've been here 37 years. Once we had a twister and a tree came down on the garage, but that was years ago."
County officials said on Tuesday afternoon that the areas of Woodbury, Deptford, Woodbury Heights, Mantua and Wenonah had taken the brunt of the storm. County roads were mostly clear, however, and it did not appear that anyone had been injured. For the majority of residents, life went on as usual.
"This end got hit much worse than the southern end of the county," said Deb Sellitto, county spokeswoman.
"There's tons of trees down," said a Deptford police officer who was watching an intersection where a traffic light had gone out. "But our fire department got most of them. We're just waiting for the lights to come back on."
Widespread power outages had affected thousands of South Jersey residents.
Back in Mantua, DuBois said emergency responders and municipal workers had responded immediately. Firefighters and EMTs had checked on her at home, and the mayor was making his rounds to inspect the damage.
"The township was great," DuBois said. "They came right out."
"It's almost like the second coming of the June storm," said Mayor Pete Scirrotto. "But the important thing is no one got hurt."
He looked at the trees that had completely blocked traffic on tiny Glover Road. A contractor was on the way to remove the trees from DuBois' home, and the insurance company was expected to come out Wednesday.
"It's amazing, to think something that big could just fall."
Andy Polhamus may be reached at apolhamus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajpolhamus. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.