A tornado touchdown was confirmed Friday morning in Rhode Island, causing damage in Johnston, Scituate and North Providence, according to the National Weather Service.
Three other tornadoes were confirmed Friday in Massachusetts.
Johnston Mayor Joe Polisena Jr. said in a post on X that he believed a tornado had touched down near Interstate 295 in the area of Greenville Avenue.
"It like put him on the guardrail, and I don't know if he bounced off the guardrail," said witness George Viau. "He just came up and happened to spin."
He says he was driving on I-295 in Johnston and was able to capture video of the weather phenomenon.
"When it happened, it's like, you're looking up there and it's like, 'Is this really happening? Is something really happening in front of me?'" Viau recalled.
The Johnston Fire Department said it responded to this incident, and the driver was taken to a local hospital with back and neck injuries
"We've got a lot of damage," said Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency Director Mark Pappas. "Trees down, wires down, houses with some damage."
In Scituate, crews started moving debris this morning after a tornado touched down in that area, according to the National Weather Service.
Richard O’Neill, Jr. was at home and says;
"We got a warning from our cell phones," said Richard O'Neill Jr. "We went down in the basemant."
He described his moments of panic at his home on Byron Randall Road.
"The trees came down and everything got chaotic, but no one got injured," O'Neill said. "It's just unbelievable."
The Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency sent a team out on the field assessing damage. The agency received reports of downed trees and power lines mostly, said spokesperson Melissa Carden. There were no reports of injuries.
The hardest hit communities were Johnston and Scituate, with less damage in North Providence, Cumberland and Providence, she said.
"About 30 seconds of hell, that's what it was," Scituate resident Devin O'Leary said. "It got dead silent and then all of a sudden the house was shaking. Fortunately enough, I have three boys, my mother was here watching them while I was working and were fortunate enough to get them in the basement and everybody was safe.
"The minute I got outside, mass tree destruction everywhere," Scituate resident Meryl Brousseau added. "My neighbor's roof was off completely, my neighbor's chicken coop was completely destroyed, so it was very, very crazy out there and very scary."
Over 7,000 customers lost power at the height of the storms, according to Rhode Island Energy.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
