CHARLESTON, WV (WOAY) – On this day eight years ago a derecho, a rare type of windstorm, ripped through West Virginia and many other surrounding states.
In West Virginia it caused nearly 700,000 homes and businesses to lose power and killed three people.
According to James Zvolensky, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Charleston, the derecho started in Indiana and went all the way to the East Coast in just a few hours.
“It impacted basically all of the Mid-Atlantic and Ohio Valley region. It was one of the more unique warm season events that impacted the lives of many, because it was such widespread. I mean it went from Lake Michigan all the way to the east coast,” Zvolensky said.
The 2012 derecho was the first one West Virginia had seen since the previous one in 1991.
