Apr. 21—The Star City municipal building didn’t open for business on Monday.
It didn’t have electricity.
In fact, the entirety of Star City remained without power as of Monday afternoon, more than 40 hours after a very brief, but very violent, storm rocked Monongalia County and North Central West Virginia.
“The entire town is completely without power — residents, businesses, everything, ” Star City Mayor Sharon Doyle said. “Right now, the power company notification is saying it could be 11 p.m. [Tuesday ] night. We’re hoping it’s sooner, but that’s the only information we have to go on right now.”
The powerful wind that blitzed through the greater Morgantown area was the result of a supercell thunderstorm — the kind of powerful storm with the capability to spin up tornadoes and drop powerful localized columns of straight-line wind called microbursts.
It’s the same kind of storm that peeled the roof of Hazel’s House of Hope in May of 2022.
The intensity of this most recent occurrence was evident in the mess it left behind.
A cinder block dugout was toppled in Westover. The roof of a Star City apartment building was partially removed and placed on top of the former fire station a couple hundred feet away. An entire string of power poles were snapped on Collins Ferry Road.
“I just thought it was a typical thunderstorm. I never thought it would be so quick and so powerful, ” Doyle said. “I’ve never experienced that in my life in this area. We’ve had storms that have knocked out the power, but nothing like that. For all of Star City to be out for days, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Much of the damage, and power disruption, is the result of wind-blown trees either falling on property or pulling down utility lines.
Downed power lines ended up sparking a brush fire in the area of Berry Hill Crossing Road Monday afternoon that resulted in volunteer crews at the scene putting out an all-county alert for available manpower.
In Morgantown, a tree smashed through a fence in Krepps Park. In the county, another smashed through a cabin and damaged the lodge in Chestnut Ridge Park.
Morgantown Communications Director Brad Riffee said city crews are working to clear approximately two dozen downed trees in the wake of the storm.
The city reopened Arch Street around noon on Monday after displaced power lines were cleared. A portion of Riverview Drive remained closed as of this writing.
“We encourage our residents to report any storm damage, including downed trees, needed street sign /light repairs and other concerns within city limits by using the Morgantown 311 mobile app, ” Riffee said.
Granville Mayor Patty Lewis said she was amazed at just how localized the damage was, explaining she relaxed at home with the patio door open, unaware of what was going on just down the hill.
“We didn’t get anything. It came through and we heard and saw nothing. We had a little breeze, a little shower and that was it. We didn’t get the horrible wind that ripped through. It’s like it funneled right down Main Street in Granville, ” Lewis said, explaining a mobile home in Mona Park had its roof taken off and another suffered significant roof damage.
“Now, we did have significant damage to the roof of our social hall. We have a couple guys up there now trying to secure it. The social hall sits right behind town hall, and town hall is totally fine, ” she said. “But the social hall sits pretty much in line with the homes in Mona that got the most damage.”