Extensive Damage Caused by Severe Thunderstorms in Westfield Elicits Crews’ Cleanup Efforts –

WESTFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) -Cleanup crews were out in Westfield Friday after thunderstorms brought down trees and power lines around the city yesterday.

Priscilla Chalmers has been living in Westfield since 1983. In fact, she moved to the town because of the abundance of trees. On Friday, we found her waiting on a crew to cut down what was left of a tree in her front yard.

“I heard a crash and after a short period, I looked down, outside on my lawn, and as you can see, the tree is half gone, but there were a lot of other sounds in the neighborhood of other trees that came down,”  said Chalmers

Downpours and thunderstorms caused destruction across western Mass. on Thursday. and in Westfield, multiple trees came down, leaving some residents without power and even some roads blocked.

An emergency that surprised many, prompting calls to the Westfield Department of Public Works for help.

“They were working in the dark, and I didn’t even know how what they there were no streetlights. I don’t know how they knew what they were doing but they did a nice job,” said one local resident

The sights on Friday are drastically different from Thursday, most streets are now clear and what’s left to do now is for the Department of Public Works to finish cleaning up the trees that are down and freeing the roads that are still blocked.

Western Mass News reached out to Kara White at the Westfield D-P-W, to see how clean up is going.

“There were a lot of trees and tree limbs over the entire city of Westfield that have fallen. We ask that everyone please be patient and understanding while we work on cleaning the damages from the storm,” stated White

On West Silver Street, we found a house partially demolished by a fallen tree, with a local tree company on the scene working to remove it.

Power outages are also affecting residents. We spoke to Mike Lee, the Director of Operations at Westfield Gas and Electric, and he tells us that 4,000 people lost power last night in the span of 15 minutes.

An issue that kept him and his team working hard overnight to clean up downed lines and tree branches hanging over lines.

“Our crews worked through the night. We do stagger their shifts a little bit, so we had coverage again today, cause’ obviously they do need some rest. So, we had crews break down around 3 a.m.Those crews came back at 7 a.m. and we have additional crews that will be coming back shortly. They left here at 7 a.m. for rest,” said Lee.

That hard work has been successful with only a handful of customers still without power.

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