High winds cause hundreds of flight delays at PHL and numerous power outages throughout the region; driver killed when tree falls on car

As strong winds swept through the city Sunday night, Philadelphia International Airport saw nearly 300 delays, Peco reported power outages affecting upward of 130,000 customers, and the driver of a car was killed when a tree fell on her vehicle in the city’s Crescentville section.

The extent of the damage was not yet clear; potentially damaging winds were expected to continue into Monday.

All inbound flights were held at their original destinations for an hour on Sunday at the direction of the Federal Aviation Administration, but by 6:15 p.m., a spokesperson for the airport said that the ground stop had been lifted.

On Sunday evening, the flight tracking site FlightAware reported that planes arriving to PHL were delayed an average of 46 minutes, and that the delay time was increasing. FlightAware documented 287 delays and 73 cancellations into and out of PHL throughout the day.

Around 6:30 Sunday evening, a spokesperson for Peco said that fierce winds had downed trees and tree limbs across the region, damaging electrical equipment and causing power outages for tens of thousands of people. The highest number of affected customers were in Delaware County, with 50,000 experiencing outages, followed by 28,000 in Montgomery County, 23,300 in Chester County, 21,500 in Bucks County, and roughly 11,000 in Philadelphia, the spokesperson said.

He said emergency response crews were working to restore power as quickly as possible.

“Because the weather is still moving through the service area tonight and into tomorrow, it’s too early to tell when we’ll have service restored to all customers,” the Peco spokesperson, Benjamin Armstrong, said.

Atlantic City Electric said as of 8 p.m. more than 10,000 customers had lost power, mainly in Cumberland, Gloucester, and Burlington Counties. The high winds would impact repair times, a spokesperson said, because aerial trucks cannot operate with winds over 40 mph.

According to Philadelphia police, a tree fell on a Honda Accord just after 6 p.m. on the 500 block of West Hill Creek Drive in Crescentville. The driver, whom police described as an unidentified woman, was pronounced dead at the scene. No other details were available Sunday night.

A high-wind warning is in effect in the Philadelphia region until 6 p.m. Monday, with winds potentially gusting up to 60 mph, the National Weather Service said. The weather service said that widespread power outages were expected and cautioned that even car travel would be difficult. AccuWeather said the high winds might cause “minor damage.”

A spokesperson for the airport said she was not sure if there would be additional delays or cancellations on Sunday and advised passengers to check with their airlines for the latest information. Delays and cancellations are not determined by individual airports, she said.