NEW ALBANY, Ohio (WCMH) — Storms tore through some areas of Licking County overnight Monday, knocking down trees and utility poles, and causing some people to lose power.

AEP Ohio crews shut down portions of U.S. 62 to clean up the damage. The highway opened back up around 4 p.m. Tuesday.

People in the area said the overnight storm was loud and scary.

George Mabe has lived in the Johnstown area for 50 years. He said there’s been only one other time in his life where he’s woken up from a storm as loud as Tuesday night’s.

“Hail was hitting the side of the windows there in that bedroom,” Mabe said.

Mabe said he got up to see what was going on, but he couldn’t see outside.

“I was really scared, so I got up to get ready to go down to the basement,” he said. “I thought it was a tornado.”

Mabe said it only lasted about 20 minutes, so he went back to sleep.

Then when he woke up in the morning, he saw branches all over his yard. His next-door neighbor had a full tree fall over in his yard.

“He was up, the neighbor, at 6:30 in the morning because the tree was in the road and he had to trim it up so the school bus and everybody could get by,” Mabe said.

There were scenes like this all up and down Miller Church Road.

At Miller Memorial United Methodist Church, a tree came down just inches in front of the church’s sign.  The building also lost power.

“It’s just a mess here,” trustee Bob Hatten said. “We are going to have to have a lot of truckers or a lot of people come and clean this mess up.”

Hatten said instead of the picnic they had planned for Tuesday, he spent the morning picking up debris.

“It was scattered all over. The tree house that was over here for the children and it blew over here,” Hatten said. “Over on Millers Church Road there, there’s all kinds of trees down. They’ve got Adams tree service taking care of those trees.”

Adam Roof said he started working in the neighborhood early Tuesday morning.

“This person called me and needed out of their driveway today, so we are down here trying to make that happen and the neighbor there he’s in the same situation,” Roof said.

He said the area got a lot of rain causing the ground to be saturated. He said with the combo of the wind and the rain, the pine trees didn’t stand a chance. But the utility poles falling, he said that was a shock.

“Well I mean with the power poles being knocked down like they were, there were some high, high winds here,” Roof said. “I mean usually the power poles don’t catch that much wind, unlike the pine trees.”

AEP Ohio said they hope to have all power restored by Tuesday night.