Severe rain, high winds pelt Aroostook County

4 years ago

PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — On Wednesday Jessica Cyr of Presque Isle forgot to take in her daughter’s favorite play tent that she had set up on the front lawn of her house in the city on Wednesday, Oct. 16.

“I knew that there was a chance that we were going to get high winds and rain on Thursday,” she said.

Before she could get out to do it, she watched a gust of high wind come along and whip it across the street, where it unfortunately got run over a few times by some heavy trucks.

“I am hoping that my daughter doesn’t notice that it is gone and I can just run to the store real quick and replace it,” she said. 

Thursday’s storm brought slashing rain and high wind gusts to many parts of The County. 

That whipping wind blew the roof off the Mars Hill IGA building Thursday morning. Much of the metal roof was sheared off the building, causing tin to go flying. Emergency responders were at the building just after 11 a.m. 

As of Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service office in Caribou had issued a wind advisory to remain in effect until 4 p.m. for some of central Aroostook County, including the areas of Presque Isle, Caribou, Van Buren and Mars Hill. 

Forecasters expected east winds of 15 to 25 mph with gusts of up to 40 mph, and warned that gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects, cause tree limbs to fall and result in isolated to scattered power outages.