Severe Storms Kill 5 in NY, Maryland

4 homes destroyed near Syracuse
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 9, 2014 2:53 AM CDT
Severe Storms Kill 5 in NY, Maryland
A fireman walks through a debris field off Goff Road in Smithfield following a storm yesterday.   (AP Photo/Oneida Daily Dispatch, John Haeger)

At least five people were killed when fierce storms lashed several East Coast states last night, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power in New York and Pennsylvania. In Smithfield, a town between Syracuse and Utica in New York state, four people were killed when a storm ripped four houses apart with winds so strong that one home came off its foundation and landed on another home, the local sheriff tells the Post-Standard. "We got our search dogs out right now looking around," he says. "We're just picking up parts of the house to see if anybody is underneath them."

The storm also peeled the roof off a building at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse. Experts will examine the damaged sites to determine whether the damage was caused by high winds or a tornado, reports Reuters. At a church summer camp near Manchester, Maryland, a boy was killed and eight other children were injured when a tree fell on a group seeking shelter. "We had a very fast moving storm go through the area with heavy winds and rain, and the campers got caught away from their shelter," a fire department spokesman tells CNN. (More severe weather stories.)

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