Severe Weather Hits Buckeye

By Rachel Lund
Published: Friday, August 1, 2014 - 2:54pm

Severe weather struck parts of the West Valley on Thursday night. High winds and heavy rain left many without power and others injured. 

Ten trailers were blown over at an Trailer Park in Buckeye during Thursday night’s microburst.

Fire Chief Bob Costello said they were called in to assess the damage.

"We had to do a trailer by trailer search for victims and of course all of them were on their sides so the crews went in and ended up laddering up the side of the trailer, forcing entry and then crawling through the trailer looking for victims," he said. 

Other conditions caused by the storm made it hard to find injured people.

"The power was out to the RV park and it was raining extremely hard so between the illumination from the headlights and the flashing emergency lights it seemed like everywhere you looked there were trailers that were blown over on their sides,” said Costello.

Two people were taken to the hospital, none were seriously injured. Costello believes it could have been much worse. Residents of this particular trailer park often live elsewhere during the summer months, so many of the trailers were empty. 

While firefighters worked in the trailer park the department received calls for two house fires, as well as several tree and pole fires from downed power lines. Firefighters from Phoenix and Glendale were called in to support Buckeye during the night.

Alan Bunnell with Arizona Public Service said there were about 2,000 customers without power in various pockets throughout the West Valley. Crews worked through the night to restore power and deal with downed power lines. 

“When a storm hits it’s not always pleasant with the aftermath," said Bunnell. "The biggest struggle is the unknown, you don’t where they are going to hit and how powerful they are going to be.” 

By mid-morning Friday electricity had been restored to all but a handful of customers.