Storm drenches South Jersey, heads for sea

A feared second wave of thunderstorms Thursday veered south of the Philadelphia region, drenching parts of South Jersey early in the evening before heading out to sea.

There was enough rain to halt play briefly at the U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club for the second time in a day.

Overall, however, the forecasts turned out to be far more menacing than the actual weather.

Through 8 p.m., only 0.46 of an inch of rain had been measured officially at Philadelphia International Airport, well below the one to two inches in the forecast.

Emergency officials and utilities braced for more thunderstorms after the first set roared across the region, knocking out power to thousands and drenching everything in their path.

The potent system that behaved more like a cool-season storm directed more of its fury south of the region, pounding the Baltimore-Washington area, although it did pack a punch around here in the morning.

In Southeastern Pennsylvania, the storm cluster knocked out power to about 25,000 customers, primarily in southern Chester County, Peco spokesman Ben Armstrong said.

He said the outages were mostly caused by lightning.

In South Jersey, Atlantic City Electric said about 9,500 customers lost power in the storm. PSE&G also reported outages in Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties, but did not provide numbers.

The storm caused a variety of problems around the region besides cutting off electricity.

In Delaware County, firefighters responded to a blaze at Swarthmore College's Women's Resource Center that school officials said was sparked by lightning.

Possible lightning strikes were reported in Broomall, Delaware County; Hainesport, Burlington County; and Vineland, Cumberland County.

On the Garden State Parkway, a sinkhole blocked northbound traffic in Ocean County for several hours before an emergency crew could fill it in.

Though it wasn't quite golf-ball size, quarter-inch hail was reported in Haddonfield and Woodbury.

After the skies opened up over Merion and Philadelphia, the arc of powerful thunderstorms crossed the river and plowed across South Jersey.

At the Shore, the brief but intense deluge left some beach blocks and portions of Ventnor and Atlantic Avenue in and around Margate and Longport immediately flooded.