Despite the storm damage, which included downed power lines, police said no injuries were reported.
Damage to the Curran Construction building in Holyoke from Tuesday's storm as seen on Tuesday evening. HOLYOKE – Juan Lugo was at home at 45 Meadow St. when he heard a loud crack Tuesday afternoon, and everything got dark.
All Lugo could see outside his windows were leaves and branches.
The mighty winds from a late-afternoon rain storm that burst into the area apparently uprooted a tree and dumped it onto the home of Lugo and his neighbor. It also crushed a car in Lugo’s driveway.
“I was on my way to pick up my sister at the hospital, Holyoke hospital, and I was bringing the dog inside and I heard this cracking noise,” Lugo said. “I looked outside and I couldn’t see anything outside the windows because of all the leaves.”
The gushing rain and fierce winds also appeared to slice a giant U-shape through an industrial building on Gatehouse Road.
“I like storms. I like watching lightning and stuff, but this was pretty crazy,” said Kristen L. Garvulenski, of Chicopee.
She works at Garvulenski Service Center, 32 Canal St., across the first-level canal from a now-damaged, four-story, red-brick building that houses the James A. Curran General Contractors Inc. on Gatehouse Road.
“That was a whole building, fully intact,” said Garvulenski.
She pointed across the canal to the U-shaped area that showed the sky where minutes earlier she said was just the four-story Curran building.
Police and Garvulenski said apparently heavy winds tore a hole in the upper three floors of the building.
“We were in the bays near the tools and I heard this train noise, it sounded like the trains sound when they go by on that trestle over there,” Garvulenski said, pointing to nearby tracks. “I looked outside and part of the building was gone. It was pretty scary.”
At 45 Meadow St., a tree was smothering two houses and a car. The dirt and asphalt base of the tree was yanked, roots and all, out of the ground, and lay 7 feet high and perpendicular to the street.
Lugo was assessing the damage to his home. From the street, the tree appeared to have rested on his roof but it was difficult to tell if the house was damaged.
A blue Oldsmobile Alero belonging to Lugo’s son was parked in the driveway and appeared to be crushed beneath the tree.
The house next door to the Lugos’ appeared to sustain heavier damage. The tree appeared to have fallen on the roof, bowing it in.
Bethzaida Lugo said her husband called her at work about 4 p.m. to tell her what happened. She arrived and couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Oh my God, I was shocked,” she said.
The Lugos have lived at 45 Meadow St. for four years and have never seen anything like Tuesday’s storm, Mrs. Lugo said.
“You just have to trust God. Trust God all the way,” Mrs. Lugo said.
No injuries were reported in any of the storm-related problems, police said.
The storm included rain heavy enough to make visibility almost nonexistent for drivers on Interstate 391, hail and a tornado warning from the National Weather Service, which expired at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday.
Incidents here included power lines down on Gatehouse Road and Meadow Street, trees down in the downtown areas of at 454 Dwight Road, 32 West court St. and 27 Lawler St. and manhole covers overflowed on Appleton and Cabot streets, police said.