SALAMANCA – Allegheny State Park and the City of Salamanca apparently dodged a bullet with Tuesday’s storm front that sent ominous clouds, rain and wind through the area.
Social media reports that a tornado touched down in the Quaker Lake area were false, officials said.
There was typical storm damage in the Quaker Lake area, but nothing beyond the norm, according to Sgt. Tom Krawczyk of the Allegheny State Park Police, who said he heard tornado reports but none were confirmed.
“To be honest with you, I heard the reports myself when I was at home, but there’s no confirmed anything,” he said. “The original that I heard was a tornado touching down, completely false,” Krawczyk said.
There was “a little bit of storm damage, nothing more than a few little trees and branches on the roads. Quaker was out of power for a little bit but nothing really out of the ordinary at all and there’s no confirmed touchdowns at all or anything like that,” he said.
Social media reports were rumors only and Krawczyk said he noticed them too.
“Everything we’ve seen on it is people took video of clouds that looked like they were circling. To be honest with you, I talked with patrols this morning when they came in and they said if anything ever would have touched down considerable damage would have been done. Maybe a tree blew down on a power line and that’s what killed the power.”
He summed the situation up as “nothing more than just a regular old storm.”
The storm was partly fueled by pockets of sunshine and countered by clouds, according to WNYNewsNow Chief Forecaster Dakota Hunter.
“We were talking about the presence of sunshine and how that would help to destabilize the atmosphere. The overall severe threat started to back off a bit as the clouds were still around, but the few peaks of sun we saw were enough to fuel some of these storms. mainly eastward in Cattaraugus County where there was a bit more clearing,” Hunter said.
The storm did cause a series of calls to area emergency, fire and police departments for downed trees and poles with power lines involved.
In Westfield, at 10:31 p.m., Westfield firefighters responded to a tree down on a wire, but there was no sparking.
Lakewood firefighters responded at 11:57 p.m. to a report that a garbage truck pulled down power lines at 27 Gerald Ave.
The Fredonia Fire Department responded to north Fredonia for a power pole blocking a road, with power lines down. They also responded to Shumla Road for a large tree across the road with power lines down.
Responders also went to a report of power lines down on McKinley Avenue in Dunkirk.
The Sinclairville Fire Department responded to a downed tree blocking the Jamestown-Sinclairville Road.
Allegheny County seemed harder hit. There were reports of wind damage, trees and lines down in Cuba and on Rt. 19A in Fillmore.
WNYNewsNow’s Justin Gould & Dakota Hunter contributed to this report.