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Storm damage: Thousands still without power across Massachusetts

AUBURN, Mass. — Crews are still working to restore power to thousands of people across Massachusetts after strong winds tore down trees across Massachusetts on Tuesday.

“I just come out to fill the bird feed and I heard a creek and I looked and could see the tree was split,” said Chris Murray, who lives in Auburn.

Murray says he was in his backyard when a large tree came crashing down onto his home on Greenwood Drive.

“As I turned around a big gust of wind came and snap, snap down she came,” said Murray.

His wife was inside at the time, just a few feet away from where that tree came through.

She even got hit with some of the shattered glass.

“She had glass in her hair from when the window blew out but that was it,” said Murray.

Just a few hours earlier and about 20 minutes away in Leicester, a large tree came down, crushing two pickup trucks on Mulberry Street.

“We heard a crack, didn’t think too much of it, and another crack and we turned around to see what it was and a very large tree very slowly just came down,” said Jonathan Plante, who was doing construction nearby.

Power lines were also torn down, and it took hours for utility crews to get them back up.

“But there was a pretty good light show when all the wires came down from the telephone poles and whatnot,” said Plante. “They were charged and made quite a bit of sparkling, so we just protected the area until emergency services showed up and got everything shut down.”

The good news is in both Leicester and Auburn, no one was hurt from the fallen trees.

“If nobody’s hurt, maybe a car or house or what not, if nobody’s hurt, every tree dies sooner or later,” said Plante.

Meanwhile, over in Plymouth, the wind got fierce.

Waves tossed boats around in Plymouth Harbor, then the torrential rains swept in and were blowing sideways at one point.

After a first wave of wind and rain cleared, it was soon followed by a second band of even more wild wind and rain.

It was like that across many communities on the South Shore as tree limbs were snapped off by high winds. In Braintree, a tree was toppled, and in nearby Norwell, a fallen limb danced atop power lines.

It was a similar scene in Brockton, where another downed tree blocked a street. And in Halifax, a falling tree limb damaged a car.

But in Kingston, the wind caused a dock to break loose and the boats attached to it floated away.

Back in Plymouth, once the storm blew through, people were left with a beautiful sight to behold, a rainbow that stretched out across the sky over the Atlantic Ocean.

As the sun set, several areas without power were still in the dark. In Pembroke, 60 percent of people were without electricity at one point. And power remained out in Hanover well into the night.

In neighboring Hanover, neighbors were left without lights into the night.

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