Kevin Carne was standing under an eave on his back porch when he heard a cracking noise. He called his dog Georgia to the porch. That’s when he heard a crash and saw the branches of the 100-year-old, 100-foot pine tree land in his backyard.
“She’s a little rattled,” said Carne of his dog. “We’re all a little rattled.”
No one was hurt Thursday when high winds brought down a tree, which cut through the roof of an attached garage at Carne’s High Street home. It was one of many trees that fell during a day where 50 mph wind gusts were common. Peterborough police handled 31 calls for trees or wires down from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Greenfield closed five roads due to downed trees and wires. At one time, Francestown and Greenfield was almost completely without power, according to Eversource’s online outage map.
On Monday, Carne said the contractors had already come by to put plywood and tarps over the damaged roof.
The pine tree that fell was almost eight feet in diameter at its base, Carne said. It appeared to have some rot, according to Carne’s contractor.
Carne, who is a network administrator and the Unified basketball team coach at ConVal High School, spent the rest of his winter vacation calling contractors and insurance companies. He has homeowner’s insurance and is optimistic about getting the garage fixed.
He sent a photo of the damage to his wife, Lisa, who was visiting her son in Minnesota. Carne’s father lived in the garage addition before he passed in 2012. Before the tree fell, the Carnes used the room as a storage room for rugs and a place to get away. The skyline window recently broke and Carne was planning on replacing it.
“What are you gonna do? It happens,” Carne said. “Just glad no one was up there.”
Carne wasn’t the only victim of Thursday’s powerful winds.
At 10:10 a.m., police were called to 14 Stratton Road for a tree that had collapsed onto the roof of a car parked in the driveway, partially crushing a 2008 Chevy trailblazer owned by Irene Dussault. The top of the tree also spilled into the roadway, and had to be cleared.
At 9:14 a.m., Darlene Shepard of Peterborough was driving her Jeep Liberty southbound on Old Street Road when a limb broke off a tree and hit her vehicle, according to Peterborough police. She was able to drive the vehicle away.
In Peterborough, about half the town lost power.
“The lights flickered and then I heard a boom,” said Peterborough Sharon Rossi, who lives just down the street from where a tree snapped and came to rest on a power line on Union Street.
“Just before [the power] went out, it sounded like a freight train.”
Ledger-Transcript reporters Nick Handy and Ashley Saari contributed to this report.