Rain, strong winds cause damage across Bay State

BOSTON (WHDH) -- Heavy rains and strong winds downed trees and limbs across the Bay State early Thursday morning.

In Dorchester, a tree completely uprooted and ripped from the ground. The heaviest part of the trunk smashed a Toyota Tundra. Fortunately, the Toyota had been parked and there was no one in the car. Branches from that tree span the street, completely covering the sidewalk at the intersection of Blue Hill Ave and Seaver St.

The tree didn’t take down power lines but it did manage to crush two cars; the Toyota as well as an ambulance that had been stopped at the intersection. One large limb came down on the top of the car.

“We pulled up to the light here. We were actually talking in the truck. Next thing you know, it sounded like somebody rear-ended us. Once the compartment started crushing and everything else, I knew it was a lot more than that,” said ambulance driver, EMT Peter Spinelli.

The driver said he and the passenger were doing okay.

“Scared us a little bit but other than just being shaken up, we're okay. There was no precursor to this tree falling,” said Spinelli.

They had been headed to their first call of the day.

The other EMT in the ambulance, a woman who had been sitting on the passenger side, had to climb through on the driver's side as the limb began crushing her side of the car. Both EMTs were okay.

There was nobody else at the intersection. The tree spanned at least 10 feet and had anyone else been at the intersection, a smaller car would have been crushed.

Police were on the scene and traffic was diverted. Commuters were advised to avoid that roadway.

The same tree destroyed Junior Rosado's brand new pickup truck. He said he's as crushed as his parked car.

“I mean, I don't understand how the wind's that strong to knock this tree down,” he said.

In Roxbury, strong winds tore down a large tree across a roadway. One car was damaged and it took down wires. Another tree came down in Marshfield, affecting six utility poles. The tree fell into the wires knocking out power to houses. Crews were on scene working to restore power.

Further down the road a giant billboard crashed down on a used car lot at Roxbury Motors Inc. Crews had to bring in cranes to remove the twisted metal.

The wild weather and even stranger January temperatures are catching a lot of people off guard.

“I kinda had a feeling it was going to be something like this, but I didn't expect there was going to be this much damage,” said a local resident.

“It was like kinda scary. I was like, what, what's going on out there? It’s supposed to be snow season,” said a resident.

In Scituate, wind fueled flames on commercial fishing boat. It didn’t take long for the flames to engulf the boat. At a Salem train station, a 7News viewer said winds sent a sign flying while he was waiting for the train.

National Grid and NStar reported large numbers of outages Thursday morning and had dozens of crews on call to get the power back on.