A line of severe thunderstorms swept through Hampton Roads on Tuesday afternoon, knocking out power and bringing down trees.
In Suffolk, police reported that U.S. 58 East reopened at 4:50 p.m. after being closed because of downed trees. Police also reported that a house in the 2000 block of Kilby Lane was damaged by trees and that an unoccupied car was hit by a tree in the 1500 block of Holland Road. The storm took out electricity to traffic lights and homes, police said.
According to the Dominion Virginia Power Web site, about 20,000 customers were without power in southeast Virginia at 5 p.m. Tuesday.
At 10:30 p.m., there were about 4,250 without power. By 5:30 a.m., fewer than 300 were waiting for power to be restored.
A Chesapeake school bus was hit by a tree during the storm, injuring the driver.
The bus was on Johnstown Road when it was hit, according to a memo from Chesapeake Fire Chief R. Stephen Best Sr.
No children were hurt. The children were removed and taken home by another bus.
The fire department responded to 39 storm-related calls between 3:30 and 5 p.m., according to the memo.
There were two house fires because of lightning strikes. One was on Raleigh Road. The other was on Mardean Drive.
The Greenbrier section of Chesapeake also was hit, according to residents.
William Price, who lives in the Huntington Woods neighborhood off Volvo Parkway, said a 20-foot section of an oak tree in his yard fell on his house, covering the roof and tearing off siding.
"It hit pretty hard," he said. "I heard boom, boom, and it came down."
The National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning for Hampton Roads, eastern North Carolina and other parts of Virginia early Tuesday afternoon.
A watch remained in effect until 8 p.m.
At 3:18 p.m. the weather service indicated a line of severe thunderstorms capable of producing quarter-size hail and winds of up to 60 mph.
The weather service is calling for a slight chance of showers today, with temperatures in the 70s during the day and in the 50s at night, and clearing throughout the rest of the week and into the weekend.
Staff writers Mike Saewitz and Patrick Wilson contributed to this report.
Jim Washington, (757) 446-2536, jim.washington@pilotonline.com
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Correction..VIPIR COMMENT
Replace WVEC with WTKR..or whatever one channel 3 is. I think WVEC has Triple Doppler. Not the VIPIR. also note that Vipir is the one that will show as a misspelling.. If capitalized, VIPIR....it wont..Maybe recognizes it as an acronym.
VIPIR
I admit I watched every minute of the VIPIR coverage. This is to not the be the spell check guy, as I just found this out my self after researching what VIPIR meant. A Viper is a snake, a car, a mean person..etc..etc This I...& I assume all knew.... VIPIR is an acronym meaning Volumetric Imaging & Processing of Integrated Radar.(That I didn't know) .So technically even WVEC is guilty of at least redundancy when they call it VIPIR Radar...since the "R" in VIPIR already means radar. It's like saying radar twice. Just a friendly note so we all (me too) spell VIPIR correctly..also VIPIR will not come up on spellcheck..so have to be careful..(me too). I also noticed a new color (black holes) on the VIPIR. The lightning strike symbol is different as well. I have managed to say VIPIR 10 times in this comment. lol
For those who don't like the news coverage...
...there is a big button on your remotes marked POWER; press it once.
Lightening....
I was IN all the lightening in downtown Norfolk yesterday... It was scary. Then the hail came. I don't know where the wind was but by the time I got closer to home I could see all the wind damage in Chesapeake. A huge pine tree missed my fence by centimeters! There's stuff to clean up everywhere but thank God I had a house to go home to!
I wish my car had a television so I could keep up with the local stations weather warnings while driving. I was completely unprepared when I left work yesterday.
To all you who complain about the weather warnings and viper stuff just don't turn it on! I happen to like it and appreciate whatever they can do to keep us informed.
Photograph
The lightning picture is spectacular.
Web spelling police really
Web spelling police really need something else in life.
Morgan
Try Firefox browser with AdBlock Plus. No popups.
Channel 3
There is a bunch of weather kids at wtkr-3. Anyone watch how they play with their viper? They zoom in and out so fast it make you dizzy. Move all over the country with their toy, and never can stay in one place for more than 3 seconds. It's like watching a kid on a video game. Then they split the screen to play more. No wonder anyone can figure out what "first on 3" was with the news, due to the silly way the present the broadcast.
At least the bozo on channel 10 was not wearing his snow flake!
spelling
you could at least spell diarrhea correctly. Yes, it was "long gone" from Hampton Roads, but our viewing area includes part of Northeast NC, where the storm was not "long gone" Further, I know Channel 3 stopped at 6:30 when the News normally ends. Most of their coverage was between 5 and 6:30 (normal news broadcast times). Am I wrong?
Channels 3 and 10
have pulled their usual tricks and have run on at the mouth unitl the storm was long gone. Jeez, get over yourselves.
Well done to Channel 13 for sticking to the crawler at the bottom of the picture and not having diarria of the mouth!
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Your web site is really annoying and unprofessional. Every page I go to has "classmates.com" in my face. I can't read what I want to read without something flashing in my face.
Why don't you go to the Christian Science Monitor website http://www.csmonitor.com/ to see how a professional newspaper presents their information to the public.