Thunderstorm packs a wallop

As many as 35,000 Tucson Electric Power customers were without electricity from Wednesday night storm's peak, and transformer problems on the North Side caused more customers to lose power Thursday.

TEP crews have fixed most of the problems, but a series of utility poles just east of the Tucson Jewish Community Center were knocked down, and a crucial cable fell into the Rillito River, said utility spokesman Joe Salkowski.

"We do not have another way to get them power at the moment," Salkowski said.

"The bad news is that most of those customers are going to remain without power overnight" and into today.

The outage is in the area of East River Road to the south, East Sunrise Drive to the north, North Craycroft Road to the east and North Campbell Avenue to the west.

TEP officials are distributing ice and water in the Bashas' shopping center at North Swan Road and East Camp Lowell Drive and at the Safeway shopping center at Swan and Sunrise, for customers whose power is still out, Salkowski said.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department has established a mobile command center at Swan and Sunrise because of the outages, said Deputy Dawn Hanke, a department spokeswoman. Also, extra deputies will be patrolling the area.

Wednesday's storm was concentrated in the Midtown, Foothills and North Side areas.

It caused street flooding, knocked down trees and power poles and caused other localized damage.

Twenty-six power poles were knocked down across the city, including about a dozen near East River Road and North Dodge Boulevard, Salkowski said.

Some area school districts were affected by the power outages.

Students at Catalina Magnet High School, 3645 E. Pima St., were sent home at 12:15 p.m. after the power went out at 10:30 a.m., said Karen Bynum, a TUSD spokeswoman.

Only 40 students showed up at Davidson Elementary School, near North Alvernon Way and East Fort Lowell Road, for class Thursday morning after school staffers called parents to let them know the school had no power, Bynum said.

The students were served bag lunches, she said. The school is to be open today for classes.

Fifteen classrooms at the school were damaged by water from the storm, she said.

The Catalina Foothills School District headquarters did not have any power when employees showed up for work Thursday morning, said Facilities Director Basil Callimanis.

No other Catalina Foothills schools suffered from power outages or water damage, he said.

Several Foothills area businesses were trying to recover from the storm and the power outage Thursday afternoon.

The Tucson Jewish Community Center was closed because it did not have any power.

The storm damaged the artificial surface on the community center's tennis courts, said Ken Light, president and CEO.

Some of the fences and the light fixtures around the tennis courts also were damaged, Light said. The center didn't have any phone service, he said.

There were no special events scheduled, but an early-childhood education program and a program for children who had not yet returned to school were canceled, he said. Other regular activities and classes also did not take place.

The center was scheduled to be closed today and the power was not supposed to come back on until late this afternoon, he said.

Paul and September Walker opened all the doors and windows at their antiques store, Country Emporium Antiques, so they could dry out the inside of the building.

The storm's winds tore off half the building's roof, letting water into the store, Paul Walker said.

The store, at 3431 N. Dodge Blvd., did have power late Thursday afternoon, Walker said.

Paul Walker is a big book collector, and he said he feared for his collection.

He said he had some of the books removed from the store but "was too afraid" to see how badly they were damaged.

Forecast

Today: 95 high, 75 low, 30 percent chance of rain

Saturday: 97 high, 76 low, 30 percent chance of rain

Sunday: 97 high, 75 low, 20 percent chance of rain

Source: National Weather Service