HOLYOKE — Heavy winds from thunderstorms Friday night ripped the roofs off of two apartment blocks on West Street, leaving 141 people displaced and two people with minor injuries.
Apartment blocks at 151 and 176 West St. received extensive damage during the storm, with entire roof sections of the buildings crashing to the street below, falling onto multiple parked cars and raining bricks across the street and sidewalks, according to Holyoke Fire Department Capt. Kevin Cavagnac. The National Weather Service reported the heavy roof damage to the buildings, along with several side wall portions collapsed, at 8:05 p.m.
There are a total of 47 apartments between the two buildings, Cavagnac said. Mayor Alex Morse said in a phone interview Saturday that the two people injured have since been discharged from the hospital.
Morse said that because it was raining, the Dr. Marcella R. Kelly School on West Street was opened to house families while officials worked to get those displaced into the Fairfield Inn & Suites Springfield-Holyoke on Whiting Farms Road. The building’s owner and landlord paid for everyone’s room on Friday night, Morse said.
Around 20 families were still staying at the hotel as of Sunday evening, according to its general manager, Seth Zenitz. These families are also receiving assistance from the Red Cross, he said.
“Everybody is there at this point,” Morse said.
The mayor said he has been in touch with the state Department of Housing and Community Development and was told there will be emergency funding available for permanent rehousing of the displaced tenants. While renovations are happening, Morse said, the city will be looking to help coordinate ways to get displaced tenants into currently vacant property.
“Until that happens, we’ll do everything we can to make sure to compel the landlord to continue paying for hotels until there is permanent rehousing or a plan,” Morse said. “We don’t want any family homeless or on the street.”
Morse said the city’s building commissioner was working to assess the damage. The buildings are not a loss but significant repairs are needed, including insulation and roofing, according to Morse, which the commissioner estimates could take up to six months.
In 2004, Sargent West Apartments II Limited Partnership paid Sargent West Apartments Associates $3.3 million for a number of properties in Holyoke, including those affected in Friday’s storm, according to state property records.
A line of thunderstorms moved into Massachusetts from east/central New York on Friday night, bringing winds with speeds reaching up to 60-70 mph, including in Holyoke, said Andrew Loconto, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Norton.
“This here is a line of storms that had a core of really strong winds that were transported down to the ground,” Loconto said.
Loconto said photos of the damage indicated that the destruction was caused by straight-line wind damage and not tornados. As of late Saturday morning, National Grid reported that more than 8,000 customers were still without power across the state.
At the West Street apartment buildings, residents of the lower floors were allowed back in to retreive belongings, though those from the fourth floor were not, Morse said.
Morse, who said he admires and was humbled by the resilience of community members amid trauma and crisis, said it was “miraculous” that no one was seriously injured.
“To think that in the middle of this pandemic that folks are now out of their homes, the one place that provides comfort and security, is really unfortunate,” he said.
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.