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The storm caused at least $1 million to $2 million in damage, much of it due to downed trees and wires, officials said.
The hardest-hit area was Lititz, where enormous trees toppled and snapped off, causing a major mess on streets and on properties across the borough, officials said.
Monday, residents spent the day dragging branches out of their yards, crews in bucket trucks took down damaged trees and landscapers chopped and ground up the debris left on what seemed like every street.
"It seemed to be ground zero," said county emergency management coordinator Randy Gockley, who toured the borough Sunday evening.
RAW VIDEO: Storm cleanup in Lititz
Lancaster and Manor townships also were damaged by lightning strikes and storm damage.
The storm killed one woman, Sheila Coldren, 53, of the 2100 block of Clover Hill Road. She was electrocuted when she got too close to a downed wire in her Manor Township yard, police said.
As many as 12,000 households lost power during the storm here. Early Monday, about 2,500 still had not been restored, though that number dropped throughout the day and stood at 225 by 9 p.m.
The damage was not due to a tornado, according to Pete Jung, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
"We looked at some damage in Lititz and we determined it was not a tornado," Jung said.
The damage, Jung said, was caused by what are called straight-line winds, with speeds "somewhere between 70 and 80 miles per hour at the storm's peak."
Damage from straight-line winds produced by thunderstorms can be determined because debris is pushed in the same direction the wind is blowing, whereas damage from a tornado is more scattered due to the storm's rotation.
Sunday's storm damage was indicative of straight-line wind.
"Trees were totally uprooted and lying straight over, like the wind came along and pushed it over in one direction, roots and all," Gockley said.
Lightning strikes sparked fires in Manor Township and Little Britain Township. And there were some reports of trees leaning against homes, damaging downspouts and roofs.
But fortunately, the storm did not cause major structural damage, Gockley said. He said he received no reports of homes that were so damaged that they were uninhabitable.
One of the places that did have structural damage was the Mary Dixon Chapel at Linden Hall, along Main Street in Lititz.
The storm's winds were so vicious they simply imploded a large, arch-topped stained-glass window on the 1883 chapel.
A Reading company was coming to assess the damage and see if part of the window, which was salvaged, could be restored, said Paige McFarling, Linden Hall's director of advancement.
Outside the chapel, huge trees and branches were thrown around by the wind and lay in disarray on the front lawn between the historic girls' school and the Lititz Moravian Church.
That area — the picturesque church square — suffered major damage.
Linden Hall lost between 50 and 60 trees, some more than 100 years old, said Dan Bender, president of Erb Brothers Landscaping. The church also had downed trees.
Numerous trees, including several near Main Street, were damaged and will have to be taken down. Bender said he was sad that included linden trees, which gave the school its name.
"I'll be planting some linden trees here," he said.
After the storm cleared, McFarling said, she and students and others who showed up after the storm made sure that about 20 horses kept at the school were led inside barns to safety, because parts of fences were destroyed by the storm.
People pitched in to help all over the borough.
"Here in good old Lancaster County, you had a lot of neighbors helping neighbors," Gockley said. "The cleanup was under way within an hour of the storm passing."
On Woodland Avenue, a leafy street with enormous trees just south of Lititz, neighbors sawed and dragged away downed trees together. Some even alerted other neighbors, who were away, about the damage after the storm passed.
Donna and Bruce Bucher pulled up to their home at 26 Woodland Ave. this morning, where crews already were clearing a downed ash and a dogwood tree from their property. The couple, who were at a family gathering in Virginia, got a call from a neighbor about the storm.
"It's crazy," said Donna Bucher, stepping over downed branches. "We didn't know it was this extreme."
Like many Lititz residents, Les Ruhl went to his basement when the storm hit at his house at 22 Woodland Ave.
When he emerged, a 100-foot-tall tree had toppled from his property across his street, where crews still worked to remove it Monday. Power had yet to be restored to the area as of lunchtime.
"We're just glad no one was hurt," he said, adding, "Life goes on."
Then he hurried back to help a neighbor clear away trees.
Staff writer Larry Alexander contributed to this report.
