ELLENVILLE – Punctuating a thoroughly wet month of rain, on Friday residents and businesses in the village were in for a soaking — and a whole lot of wind — as a type of storm referred to as a 'microburst' swept through, wreaking havoc in its wake.

After a bright, sunny morning, the skies darkened at about 3 p.m., letting forth a volley of rain that pelted the streets and residents in the Village of Ellenville. But at about 3:30, the already violent rainstorm took an ugly turn as high speed winds began to blow, knocking trees and power lines into houses and cars.

"A microburst is a strong, downward downdraft of wind out of a thunderstorm, and in the case of Ellenville, it's probably what we call a wet microburst," said Ray O'Keefe of the National Weather Service in Albany. "The thunderstorm builds up, and builds up, and then at some point, the energy gets sapped from the storm and effectively it collapses…so you get this rush of water rushing to the ground, and as it's rushing to the ground, it creates this momentum and carries with it the air. Then it hits the air, and then as it hits the ground, that wind spreads out from the storm.

"So if you're right under it, which sounds like Ellenville was, you get the immediate impact of this collapsing thunderstorm on top of it. And then the storm spreads out, and the further away from the epicenter you get, the less the damage. But if you're right underneath it, you experience pretty significant damage in terms of trees and power lines."

One particularly powerful gust of wind actually ripped the membrane roof — or rubber roof — off of the T West Sports Pub, formerly the BG Sportsman Pub, on the corner of Canal and Liberty Streets.

"It blew the roof off of the building, exposed the underside of the roof, which was plywood, water then got through that and had the entire ceiling collapse inside the bar itself," said Brian Schug, Building Code Enforcement Officer for the Village of Ellenville, who assessed the damage throughout the village on Monday.

In the midst of the storm, Melody Hinds, the proprietor of the bar, expressed her shock and disbelief — especially considering she'd been running the business for under a week, having opened the previous Saturday.

"I can't believe that," she said on Friday of losing the roof, while she was working to close the bar before the ceiling could collapse. "I looked, and there was a gush of water that just came off the building, and the roof went with it."

As Hinds worked to shut down the bar, ceiling tiles were bursting, soaking the floor and the equipment in the bar. By the end of the storm, the entire ceiling had collapsed. But the damage to the building, owned by Rivan Krieger, wasn't even the worst experienced in the village. According to Schug, in addition to the bar, two other structures — 21 Church Street and 132 Center Street — have been posted with notices saying the structure is unsafe and its occupancy has been prohibited.

Of the damage at 132 Center Street, Schug described the scene of destruction: "The whole porch basically was taken out, but there is some pretty substantial damage. The porch catches your eye immediately, but there also is some substantial damage to the roof." Furthermore, the tree that slammed into the house is hiding a car as well.

"It's massive, we couldn't even see that [the car] was under there — somebody could've been crushed to death. Luckily, we did see it, and there's nobody in there," said Ellenville Police Chief Phil Mattracion.

Schug also noted many other streets suffering damage, including Warren Street, Rippert Lane, Tuthill Avenue, and Carnation Avenue to name a few. Berme Road was hit particularly hard, with Chief Mattracion saying that it "looked like a war zone with the amount of trees and wires that were down."

"The actual damage that was done occurred probably within five to ten minutes," said the chief. "Most of the damage was on the east side of the village; the west side was virtually untouched."

"I would say that definitely the village took a shot, but it could've been a lot worse," said Schug. "There were no injuries."

"We were very fortunate," echoed Chief Mattracion.

Many residents may remember a similar storm from a few years ago, also classified as a microburst, that tore its way through Ellenville in much the same fashion. "Everyone thought it was a tornado," said Schug of the previous storm. "That was actually the first time I found out what a microburst was."

"In any one place, like in Ellenville, they're rather infrequent," said Ray O'Keefe of microburst storms. His station in Albany monitors the weather of 19 counties ranging from Ulster and Dutchess Counties in the south, up through Lake George and out to Herkimer County, consisting of 15 counties in eastern New York, and four more counties in adjacent New England.

"Over the course of a summer, anywhere in those 19 counties, there are probably six to 10 microbursts, depending on the summer…they're infrequent but they're not impossible to have. They occur with some degree of regularity, but not a great deal of frequency, fortunately."