Cleanup efforts are underway on Wednesday in communities across Massachusetts, after a series of strong storms whipped through the Commonwealth on Tuesday, leading to two confirmed tornadoes and flooding rain.
In the South Coast community of Mattapoisett, the National Weather Service confirmed that an EF-1 tornado touched down Tuesday morning. Homes and cars were left damaged in the wake of the tornado, which also led to downed trees and power lines.
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The tornado touched down at 11:20 a.m., and was on the ground for just under a mile, with estimated peak winds of 95 mph.
Town officials there believe the community's water treatment plant was damaged, and are working to assess the situation. The plant is still up and running.
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There were no reports of injuries in Mattapoisett.
The second tornado of the day touched down in Barnstable, near the Marston Mills village, and was on the ground for 1.1 miles with estimated peak winds of 80 mph, making it an EF-0, according to the NWS. There were no injuries or deaths associated with that tornado, either.
In the Merrimack Valley, businesses were impacted by the heavy rain that led to flooding in many areas of the state. A parking lot outside of a mill building on High Street in North Andover was covered in water, submerging cars in the area.
Businesses inside the building, including a café, toy store and restaurant, were hit hard by the water.
"We went back inside, the water was above the basement, above the 5-step mark, almost to the top of the basement level and at that point there was nothing we could really do and just tried to do as much as we could to salvage as much as we can but at the time it was just no saving it," a chef a Jamie's Restaurant, Christian Wallis, said.
There were no serious injuries there, either, but the restaurant's owner said that cleanup would be ongoing Wednesday, including throwing out their food.
Cleanup would surely be ongoing in many other communities, too, with flooding impacting roads and buildings from the South Coast, to MetroWest, to the Merrimack Valley.
Power was almost entirely restored on Wednesday morning, after thousands experienced outages on Tuesday. As of 5:45 a.m. Wednesday, there were 377 customers in Massachusetts experiencing an outage, including 112 in North Andover, 79 in Needham and 82 in Falmouth.
