Heavily hit communities included Chicopee, Holyoke, Springfield and Wilbraham. Watch video
Still reeling from the June 1 tornado, residents of Western Massachusetts Wednesday were assessing the damage caused by Thursday’s thunderstorm.
Preliminary indications were that Tuesday’s late afternoon storm damage was caused by "microbursts," a spokesman for the National Weather Service at Taunton said.
“Picture heavy winds striking the ground from the thunderstorm, then radiating out, like when a rock hits the water,” National Weather Service meteorologist Rebecca Gould said.
Heavily hit communities included Chicopee, Holyoke, Springfield and Wilbraham.
In Wilbraham the area hit by the storm included the area hit by the June 1 tornado.
Heather Mercier has been living in a mobile home at her house on Tinkham Road while her house, heavily damaged in the tornado, is repaired.
During Tuesday’s storm a tree fell on the mobile home the insurance company provided, which was set up in the backyard.
Mercier said she saw 50-mile-an-hour winds and hail, reducing visibility to the point where she could not see a ladder propped against the front of her house. From the back rear sliding door, she saw a tree fall on the mobile home.
Mercier said she and her partner will move to a hotel until the mobile home can be repaired or replaced.
Wilbraham Selectmen Chairman Patrick J. Brady said most roads were open in Wilbraham on Wednesday, the day after the storm, but some of the side streets off Ripley Street were only accessible on foot.
Brady said residents of those streets left their cars at the United Church on Main Street and walked to their homes.
As with the tornado, neighbors were out with chainsaws helping neighbors clear driveways, Brady said.
“Unfortunately, because of the tornado, residents already know the drill,” he said. “They are putting downed branches and trees out on the tree belt for pickup by the DPW.
Brady said a few dozen houses were badly damaged by the storm. There were no reported injuries.
Power crews from National Grid were working throughout the day in Wilbraham and Hampden restoring power.
Amy Zorich, spokesman for National Grid, said power should be restored to most of Hampden and Wilbraham by midnight Wednesday.
Western Massachusetts Electric Company also was working to restore power to its customers in Western Massachusetts who lost power. In most communities power had been restored to all but one percent of customers.
In Springfield, the owner of the Bircham Bend Mobile Home Park on Grochmal Avenue in Indian Orchard said the storm caused significant damage, including toppled trees and the loss of power.
One toppled tree missed striking two mobile homes when it became snagged against another tree, said Stephen Shahabian, owner of the park.
“It would have crushed two mobile homes like pancakes,” Shahabian said.
The root of the fallen tree lifted a parked car. A nearby tree flattened a shed.
Power was still out early Wednesday evening.
One park resident, who declined giving her full name, said the storm was “the scariest thing.”
“The wind – I never heard such howling.” the woman said. “The hail was just like golf balls hitting the windows.
Another resident, James Mendenhall, said neighbors ran out with their chain saws to make a path for cars at various sites.
The storm also knocked out power to a pumping station in Indian Orchard, which was fully restored Wednesday afternoon.
Robert Hassett, the city’s emergency preparedness director, said that approximately 3,000 customers were left without power in Springfield when the storm hit.
No significant injuries were reported in Springfield.
The brunt of the storm in Springfield was in a pathway from the Parker Street area to Indian Orchard, he said.
Western Massachusetts Electric Co., brought in crews from New Hampshire and the Boston area to assist with the cleanup and restoration of power, Hassett said.
In Chicopee, Kenneth Jimmo hunkered down in his mobile home park at Knollwood Estates with two of his sons as Tuesday afternoon’s violent weather hit.
“I have never been so scared in my life,” said Jimmo, a disabled veteran who lives at 110 Edbert St. “We looked outside and trees were flying everywhere and the next thing you know the trailer shook like we were having an earthquake.”
The wind hurled a jagged limb through the roof of Jimmo’s home, narrowly missing one of his sons who had been walking down the hallway. “If it had gone all the way down I think I would have had one less son,” he said.
Temporarily homeless, Jimmo said he was going to meet with the Pioneer Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross later in the day to find housing for his family.
“I have three children that live with me, my wife, myself, a small dog, and I have no idea what to do from this point on,” Jimmo said.
Jeffrey Cady, general manager of Chicopee Electric Light, said some 5,000 to 6,000 of the municipal utility’s 26,000 customers were left without power in the aftermath of the storm.
Municipal electric company crews, some from as far away as Norwood and Wellesley, managed to reduce that number to as low as 400 or 500 when a problem with a circuit once again swelled the number of those without power.
Cady said he is hopeful that Chicopee’s power will be completely restored by Thursday night.
“For people without power, they don’t care if it’s a thunderstorm or a tornado,” Mayor Michael Bissonnette said. “They just want their power back on.”
Chicopee’s Fairview neighborhood was also hit especially hard and on Barbara Street, neighbors pulled together to help clear fallen limbs from one of the hardest-hit properties.
Judy Laino, of 75 Barbara St., had a tree limb penetrate a bedroom of her home and a number of others tumble down onto the property.
Neighbors banded together, however, with rakes and chainsaws and made quick work of the fallen limbs. “They just pitched in,” said Laino. “It was great and everybody worked until it was out of the way.”
The clean-up culminated about 1 a.m. on Wednesday with a hot dog roast in the Laino’s front yard.
The hole in the Laino family’s roof, meanwhile, gained an impromptu patch via a neighbor’s creative suggestion. “He said, ‘Do you have cookie sheets? I think it will work,’” said Laino.
The storm brought down at least 200 trees in the city, Bissonnette said — a count that doesn’t include damage to Chicopee State Park on Brunet Road.
Bissonnette said he and a number of other Chicopee residents had been surprised by the suddenness of the violent weather. “This came out of nowhere,” he said.
The violence of the storm was evident at the Irene Street home of Jack and Donna Jasinksi where a massive maple was uprooted. “Mother nature was mad yesterday,” said Sarah Wodecki, the Jasinski’s daughter. “Having a bad day I suppose.”
The maple, fortunately, fell away from the house. It’s falling, however, damaged a walkway and left a hefty section of root and lawn jutting into the air.
In Holyoke, interim Building Inspector Mark E. Hebert said he has condemned an old mill building overlooking the canals on Gatehouse Road that had part of its upper three stories bashed in by the storm’s fierce winds.
The four-story James A. Curran General Contractors Inc. building must be demolished. Curran will have seven days from Wednesday, the day the city officially notified him, to tell the city when he plans to get the structure razed, Hebert said.
The building was in poor shape before the storm with a hole in the roof, he said. It was being used for storage.
“It was already in a weakened state,” Hebert said.
Efforts to reach Curran were unsuccessful.
Hebert said it was unclear how much demolishing the building would cost. He also didn’t know how old the building was, though mills in that area are listed on the city website as having been built in the 1880’s.
Juan Lugo said he was still assessing the damage to his home at 45 Meadow St. where a tree uprooted by the storm crashed onto his house and heavily damaged a car in the driveway.
The tree, which an official identified as a silver maple, also damaged a house next door to Lugo’s.
Some positive developments did occur, Lugo said. He and his wife Bethzaida Lugo were able to stay in the house Tuesday night.
Also, Lugo said, crews from the Department of Public Works and Holyoke Gas and Electric Department removed the tree, filled in the big hole on the sidewalk left by the uprooting and re-illuminated a streetlight damaged by the falling tree.
“They did pretty good. Everything’s been cleared,” Lugo said.
Aside from the obvious damage spots, the storm’s damage citywide was minor. Public works employees spent Tuesday night and Wednesday picking up large tree limbs downed around the city, Superintendent William D. Fuqua said.
The department was aware of four trees that the storm knocked down citywide, he said.
Staff reporters Brian Steele, George Graham, Peter Goonan and Mike Plaisance contributed to this report.