As cleanup continues, Fall River DCM Director Ken Pacheco wonders if bursts of severe weather are "t

[unhappycamper]

http://www.heraldnews.com/article/20150804/NEWS/150808738/0/breaking_ajax



As cleanup continues, Fall River DCM Director Ken Pacheco wonders if bursts of severe weather are "the new norm"
Brian Fraga
Posted Aug. 4, 2015 at 5:36 PM
Updated at 7:06 PM

FALL RIVER — For the third time in little more than a week, a short but powerful thunderstorm with high winds swept through Greater Fall River early Tuesday morning, flooding streets, snapping tree limbs and causing widespread power outages throughout the region.

Beginning just after 6:30 a.m., the storm dumped almost an inch and a half of rain in Fall River in less than an hour just as commuters were preparing to travel to work. City work crews responded to heavy flooding on Plymouth Avenue, North Main Street and other thoroughfares and side streets that normally experience flooding during heavy storms, said Kenneth Pacheco, the director of community maintenance for the city of Fall River.

“We had 1.3 inches of rain in a 45-minute rain period, which is a lot of rain,” Pacheco said. “With the wind, we had gusts as high as 40 mph, which makes sense with trees snapping at the size they were.”

The winds damaged about 40 trees in the city, most of those north of President Avenue.