1 Dies, Others Hurt as Wind Topples 2 Church Steeples

Fierce 70-m.p.h. wind tore through central and eastern Massachusetts on Friday, tearing roofs off buildings and killing a woman when a church steeple toppled onto her car.

A second church steeple also was felled by the wind, which accompanied a line of thunderstorms that uprooted dozens of trees and utility poles, cutting off electricity to thousands of customers in many towns.

“The city’s in quite rough shape. We got one fatality, the car that got crushed by the church steeple,” said Fitchburg Mayor Jeffrey Bean, who declared a state of emergency following the brief storm.

“It’s incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it before. Debris was just blowing by the window,” said Rick Gulino, a spokesman for the mayor.

In Fitchburg, the hardest-hit community, steeples fell from the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, built in 1837, and the Faith United Church, both located along the Upper Common on Main Street, which was flooded by the storm.

The steeple from the Unitarian church landed on the car, killing Sandra R. Cressey, 53.

Officials at Burbank Hospital said at least eight people were treated for injuries stemming from the storm. Most of the injuries were caused by the toppled Unitarian church steeple, including injuries to a mother and her three children.

Authorities evacuated 200 people from a 14-story senior citizens high-rise because part of the roof came off and the wall was cracked. The roof on the Sanitoy factory, which makes toys for children, also was blown off.

Substantial damage also was reported in nearby communities, including Gardner and Leominster, and there was widespread damage in the Boston area before the storm swept out to sea.

The National Weather Service in Boston reported that the winds exceeded 70 m.p.h., but the storm was not classified as a tornado.

“We have spoken to people there, meteorologists, who say it’s more in the nature of a micro-burst, a down-burst, than a tornado,” said Gene Auciello, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boston.

“There’s no funnel cloud on radar, no eyewitness observation of a funnel cloud,” he said. “The damage reported, to the upper stories of buildings, is more characteristic of a down-burst.”