FROSTBURG - If it wasn't nailed down, it was gone with the wind.

Plastic patio furniture went flying, the power went out, and wires and trees came down as a brief but fierce storm wound its way through the Frostburg area Tuesday afternoon. Hundreds of homes were left in the dark.

Some people feared a tornado was the culprit when the 4:15 p.m. winds began blowing, but an Accuweather meteorologist said it was merely a thunderstorm. "A severe thunderstorm can do a lot of damage from a straight line wind gust," Jon Pacheco said. With that type of thunderstorm, "you can expect gusts over 60 miles per hour. Wind gusts 60 to 70 mph knock trees down," he added.

Accuweather officials in State College, Pa., received several reports of trees and electrical lines down by wind and hail damage in Frostburg and McHenry, while Allegany County officials said Clarysville and Mount Savage also experienced storm damage.

"Saws are going and the power company's coming out," a spokesman with the Allegany County 911 Joint Communications Division said, after local emergency services crews couldn't keep up with all the reports of downed trees and wires they were receiving.

"It was fast. But boy when it was here, it was something," Frostburg City Police Sgt. G.D. Kroll said. Driving a police cruiser when the storm struck, Kroll said he couldn't even see. "It was a blinding rain."

Throughout the region, several trees were knocked down by the force of the storm, including an old-growth tree six-feet in diameter on Borden Avenue. It completely blocked the street, Kroll added.

Enough damage occurred in Frostburg that Greg Jones and Phillip Austin, two general foremen with Asplundh Tree Expert Company, were manning six crews around the clock there.

Numerous power outages were reported in Allegany and Garrett counties, as well as Grant and Hampshire counties in West Virginia, and Bedford County, Pa.

Allegheny Power posted the number of customers without power at its Web site. Lights went off for 3,681 customers in Allegany County; 311 in Garrett County; 1,845 in Bedford County, and 35 customers in Grant and Hampshire counties.

More than 10 percent of the company's customers were affected in Allegany County, while 37 percent of Bedford County customers saw the lights go out.

Officials with the power company said power would not be restored for Allegany and Garrett customers until 6 a.m. Wednesday. Other places without electricity could see power return as early as 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Contact Daleen Berry at dberry@times-news.com.