Falling Tree Slices Off Back Of House During Storm

METHUEN (CBS) – Phillip Cole went to work Sunday night and when he came home to his apartment in Methuen early Monday morning his bedroom was gone.

The violent overnight storm tore apart a pine tree and it sliced through the back of the two-family home on Longwood Avenue.

Fortunately, no one was hurt.

But the back of the house is now completely exposed and the damage is extensive.

Lisa and Nelson Gomez woke up to a Mother Nature-sized alarm clock when the tree fell.

"I heard a big bang and the house swayed, and I said, 'What was that?'" Lisa said. "And he said, 'I think a tree just fell down.' And he went into the kitchen, opened up the back hallway, and there was the tree."

The tree destroyed two bedrooms--the other belonging to Cole.

"Crazy. Absolutely crazy. I mean, it was weird how it sheared off, right at my bedroom. You opened the door to my bedroom and there's no bedroom. There's no floor, there's no anything really, just a closet and that was it," Cole told WBZ-TV.

"So it's pretty unbelievable. But it's just stuff. It can be replaced. Luckily nobody was hurt. My landlord was home and thank God they weren't hurt, too, but life goes on."

Crews were busy Monday afternoon trying to remove the tree from the home.

Six people live in the house, which now has no electricity, like much of the neighborhood around it.

More than 320,000 homes and businesses lost power in the storm across Massachusetts.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Karyn Regal reports