by Alex Lloyd Gross
Just before 1:00 PM today June 3 2020 a strong windstorm came through the region with winds reaching 80 MPH .Trees were knocked over, power were cut to many different customer in across the region. In center city Philadelphia, the PA National Guard was detailed at Fire Department Headquarters, located at 240 Spring Garden Street. Their main function was to shut down a block of Spring Garden Street and secure the area. When the storm hit, a large fence came down and almost came apart and blew away.. The fence was erected by the guard to help secure the command facility during the Black Lives Matter riots.
While no injuries were reported. the chain link fence with covering was blown over and across the lanes of traffic. Part of it was laying on news cars parked on the center island for a soon to happen news conference. As soon as the wind died down, workers from the Office of Emergency Management, along with members of the PA National Guard got to work re positioning the fence and putting extra sandbags down to insure it would not happen again. They worked for about 20 minutes trying to stabilize sections of the fence.
Across the city, police reported trees came down on the Ben Franklin Parkway. A traffic light blew over on Vine Street but was fully operational.