For many, the storm was an eerie reminder of the June 1 tornadoes that caused severe damage in Westfield, West Springfield, Springfield, Wilbraham, Monson and Brimfield.
Updates live coverage of the storm.
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A strong thunderstorm that brought 50-mile-an-hour winds, hail and drenching rains late Tuesday afternoon damaged buildings, downed trees and flooded underpasses in communities just beginning to recover from the June 1 tornadoes.
A motorcyclist was killed the Berkshire County town of Hinsdale, a tree fell through a house in Hampden, part of an industrial building collapsed in Holyoke and streets were made impassable by flooding and downed trees in Chicopee.
No other injuries were reported.
For many, the storm was an eerie reminder of the June 1 tornadoes that caused severe damage in Westfield, West Springfield, Springfield, Wilbraham, Monson and Brimfield. No tornado was confirmed Tuesday.
The storm struck at about 4:30 p.m., nearly the same time the first tornado hit Springfield on June 1, and left rush-hour drivers idling as traffic signals failed and tree limbs blocked roadways. In the hardest-hit neighborhoods, some abandoned their cars and walked home with stunned expressions. In the worst spots, even that wasn’t possible as police wouldn’t allow pedestrians access because of downed electrical wires.
Such was the case in Wilbraham, where downed trees and live wires blocked multiple roads and 100 percent of the town was without power immediately after the storm after the transmission lines for the East Longmeadow Shaker Road substation were knocked down. The tornado-damaged substation had just been repaired, said David D. Graves, spokesman for National Grid.
“It appears that ground zero for the event was between Springfield Street and Tinkham Road” in Wilbraham, town Selectman Patrick J. Brady said. Tinkham Road was also seriously damaged eight weeks ago.
Residents said tornado-like winds sheered the tops off trees behind the Minnechaug Regional High School football field. The metal scoreboard on the football field was ripped off its poles and moved by wind halfway down the field.
The high winds also damaged the roof over the pool at the school.
Residents said some of the hardest hit spots appeared to be Brewer, Ripley and Orlando streets and Bittersweet Lane. Flooding was also a problem and residents had to push a car out of the driveway at the high school.
“This has been a crazy year with weather,” said Jo-Ann Carlisle, of Springfield Street. “Nothing makes any sense.
The storm started in the Berkshires at about 2 p.m. and hit Holyoke and Chicopee around 4:15 p.m. and passed east at Interstate 84 around 5:30 p.m. It brought gusting winds, heavy rains and hail, said abc40/FOX 6 meteorologist Ed Carroll.
Among the communities hit were Holyoke, Chicopee, South Hadley, Ludlow, Hampden, Wilbraham, Monson and Indian Orchard in Springfield.
Trained weather spotters for the National Weather Service reported funnel clouds over Easthampton, Chicopee and West Springfield between 4:15 and 4:30 p.m., but it is unknown if they touched down. It will be investigated by the service, Carroll said.
About 5,500 customers in Wilbraham, 500 in Hampden, 300 in East Longmeadow and 220 in Monson all lost power. Additional help was sought to repair lines, Graves said.
Western Massachusetts Electric Company reported 14,597 customers without power in the area.
Susan Walbridge said her husband called her at work and told her part of an 80-foot pine tree had fallen through their house at 18 Wehr Road in Hampden. It took her about an hour to get home from Ware.
Dave Walbridge stands in a second floor bedroom of his home at 18 Wehr Rd, Hampden where a tree literally cut his house in half.“I had to pick up my grandson in Wilbraham and you couldn’t get through. It is a mess,” she said. “Hampden doesn’t seem too bad except for our house.”
Her husband, David Walbridge, was at home when the tree fell. He was not injured but the house is badly damaged.
“I heard a big crack, it must have been when the tree broke, and I heard a bang and then parts of the ceiling and walls exploded around my head,” he said.
“It went through the upstairs bedroom and the room directly below it. You can stand on the first floor, see the second floor and look through the roof,” Walbridge said.
In Holyoke, James Lugo had just arrived home from work and was bringing in his dog when he heard a loud crack when a massive tree fell, crushing his son’s Oldsmobile that was parked in the driveway on 45 Meadow St.
“I heard this cracking noise,” Lugo said. “I looked outside and I couldn’t see anything outside the windows because of all the leaves.”
At first it was hard to tell if the tree damaged the house. His neighbor’s house seemed to sustain heavier damage as the tree landed on the roof, bowing it in.
On the other side of Holyoke, part of a four-story brick building collapsed. The roof of the building, owned by James A. Curran General Contractors Inc., blew off and some of the top three floors collapsed into a pile of rubble below.
Kristen L. Garvulenski, of Chicopee, working at Garvulenski Service Center on Canal Street when she heard a high pitched noise she thought was a train.
“We were in the bays near the tools and I heard this train noise, it sounded like the train sound when they go by on that trestle (nearby),” she said. “I looked outside and part of the building was gone. It was pretty scary.”
The South Hadley Fire Department had to launch a boat to rescue a father and son stranded on the rocks in the middle of the Connecticut River near when they were caught by surprise by the storm, said Robert R. Authier, chief of Fire District 1.
07.26.2011 | Staff Photo by Dave Roback | SOUTH HADLEY – Rescue crews from the South Hadley Fire Department reach boaters which overturned during the storm Tuesday afternoon below the Holyoke Dam .“They were fishing and saw the storm and took cover and put the boat over their head,” he said. “The boat blew away and they were stranded.”
Ludlow Police reported trees down, wires down, flooding and pockets of town without power. No injuries were reported.
In Chicopee, the storm tore down trees and power lines along Memorial Drive.
Thomas Abbott pulled into his driveway at 752 Memorial Drive about 4:15 p.m., just in time for the winds to blow down a tree in his front yard.
The tree missed Abbott’s minivan, but pulled telephone lines down on its roof; in the backyard, Abbott’s metal shed took flight and slammed into his neighbors house.
“I was racing the storm home,” said Abbott, who left work at Stop & Shop in West Springfield as the skies were darkening.
“It won,” he added.
There were reports of trees and wires down all up and down Pendleton and Irene Streets and flooding was reported on Prospect Street.
On nearby Beauregard Terrace, Jennifer Hall felt her the floor shaking and she huddled in her two-story brick home.
Outside, the winds took down a tree in her backyard and shattered, Shaquille O’Neal-style, the glass backboard on the basketball hoop in the front yard.
Sweeping up branches and tree limbs in her front yard, Hall said she was lucky to escape with property damage.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Hall said, recalling the storm’s impact. “Everything was shaking. It was like we lived next to a railroad track and a train was going by,” she said.
In Springfield, winds toppled trees along Worcester Street, Berkshire Avenue, Pasco Road and elsewhere in Indian Orchard. Side streets, blocked by fallen trees, were also closed by police.
Traffic was blocked on parts of many major roads including Pasco Road and Boston Road in Springfield, Pendleton Avenue in Chicopee, and Springfield Street in Wilbraham while backups hit others such as Interstate 291.
The storm came just hours after Springfield representatives met with top state officials to discuss efforts to rebuild houses and businesses damaged in the June 1 tornado.
“People were scared,” said Robert J. Hassett, the city’s emergency preparedness director.
Hassett said the storm left its mark.
“The (Indian) Orchard is looking like it took the biggest hit (in Springfield,)” he said.
In Monson, many residents said they felt anxious as news spread of another tornado warning, especially given the widespread destruction that the June 1 tornado left in town.
“I didn’t believe it. This couldn’t be happening again,” Mary Swierad said. “It turned my stomach.”
Downed trees and power outages were reported on Upper Hampden, Beebe, Bennett and Stafford roads, as well as Bumstead, Bogan and Robbins roads.
A tornado recovery information meeting went on as planned Tuesday night at Granite Valley Middle School, even though representatives from the Federal Emergency Management Agency canceled due to the storm. Disaster Recovery Assistant Hope Bodwell coordinated the meeting so residents would be able to talk with FEMA representatives.
At Village Green Family Campground in Brimfield, where a woman was killed in the June 1 tornado and 95 of the 97 campers and trailers were destroyed, the small number of campers and staff gathered in the basement of a house on the grounds.
“We were all huddled in the cellar again, scared,” campground owner Lester Twarowski said. “We had a lot of rain but did not have any wind. We could see the wind moving to the south.”
People also heeded storm warnings and headed to the basement at the Brimfield Congregational Church and the senior housing complex behind Brimfield Town Hall, but did not see damage there in the center of town.
“Every time there is a storm now, people take cover. We are till pretty shell shocked,” said Gina Lynch, the director of the Senior Center at the church and organizer of the church’s volunteers who have been helping residents whose properties were damaged June 1.
Staff writers Suzanne McLaughlin, Mike Plaisance, Jack Flynn, John Appleton, Lori Stabile and Peter Goonan contributed to this report.