Thursday's abnormally high winds knocked down trees and power lines throughout our area. Most communities experienced the largest gusts around 2 p.m. Tamaqua's highest wind gust for yesterday was recorded at 39 miles per hour around 2 p.m., while Lehighton was hit with 33 mile per hour winds. Tamaqua volunteer firefighters and Tamaqua borough employees worked hard to remove a tree from Schuylkill Avenue that was taken down yesterday by high winds. As this tree fell, it caused two power lines to touch and knock out power to most of Tamaqua for a few seconds. Schuylkill Avenue residents were without power as they had to wait a few hours to get their power restored.