NORTH ANDOVER, MA (WCVB/CNN) - Severe weather left parts of the Northeast facing damaged homes, power outages and traffic delays on Monday. Tropical Storm Philippe left more than a million customers without electricity. That number included about 300,000 in Massachusetts, where wind speeds reached 82 mph.
In one neighborhood, a falling tree took out a huge section of a home. "I heard a big bang and the house swayed like an earthquake,” homeowner Lisa Gomez said. A massive tree came down on a home in Methuen, slicing off the back of the house, a large chunk left in the back yard. "When I tried to open the back door, and all the sudden the tree and plaster and everything,” Nelson Gomez said.
Homeowners Lisa and Nelson Gomez were inside when the tree came down around 11 p.m. on Sunday. Fortunately their son and a tenant, who would have been sleeping in the back bedrooms, were both at work. "It could have been devastating. It could have been devastating,” Lisa Gomez said.
Damage was widespread around the Merrimack Valley. Massive trees were toppled from the overnight winds and rains that brought down utility poles and left many roads blocked with a cross stitch of wires dangling over homes.
"Howling wind, heavy rain, the next thing - snap and crack,” one resident said. In North Andover, a tree fell onto a home puncturing a hole in the attic. "We're very concerned about that water damage, getting into the house as well as a big hole in the roof,” one resident said.
And one home narrowly escaped damage when two large trees were uprooted, falling across the front lawn. But throughout the area many people, like the Gomez couple, are simply grateful that no one was injured.
“It's just a building. I mean it means a lot to my wife, she grew up in it. But it's just a building,” Nelson Gomez said. Severe weather also prompted cancellations and abbreviated hours at dozens of schools.
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