Crime & Safety
Lightning Strikes Westwood Property Sunday Morning
"It sounded like a really, really loud firecracker," says homeowner.
Tina Santoro Asmar heard what "sounded like a really, really loud firecracker" while drinking coffee on the porch of her Westwood home.
Except, it was the Sunday morning of Labor Day weekend, not July 4.
Lightning apparently struck somewhere on Asmar's property around 9:30 a.m., and "literally shook the house," Santoro Asmar said.
"And then my garage doors started going up and down," she said.
Flash flooding from the storm reportedly flooded much of the Route 128-Route 9 area, making a number of roads impassable.
Santoro Asmar said she discovered she had "a completely flooded basement," losing such items as a big-screen TV, on Sunday afternoon.
"We had a disaster at my house," said Santoro Asmar, who declined to identify her street.
Wind apparently was strong as well.
Santoro Asmar said she closed her garage doors after the wind blew them open, but the doors then opened again.
She added that her family's deli in Dedham, Santoro's Sicilian Trattoria, lost electricity.
"Dedham, I guess, is a mess," Santoro Asmar said.
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