Tornadoes kill four; emergency is declared

“We are in an emergency situation,’’ said the governor in a news conference at the state’s emergency management headquarters in Framingham. He said there had been reports of looting in Springfield, and he described the damage from the storm as extensive.

“We are hoping and praying and working as hard as possible to keep the fatalities limited to those four’’ already confirmed, he said.

Two of the deaths occurred in West Springfield, one in Springfield, and one in Brimfield, officials said. State Police said 33 people were injured in Springfield alone, including five seriously, in a storm that rapidly spread darkened skies across the state.

In Monson, residents described widespread damage that made the Central Massachusetts town look like it had been bombed. On some streets there appeared to be as many trees fallen as were still standing.

“There’s got to be 10 to 20 houses that are just completely gone,’’ said Heather M. Dickinson, 39, a resident who waited out the storm on her porch.

She said two churches in the small town had their steeples blown off and roofs had been torn off municipal buildings. She said the supermarket on Main Street was “wiped out’’ and several cars had been flipped over by the strong winds.

When the tornado came by, “it sounded like a … train coming in,’’ she said. She saw hail the size of golf balls. “We didn’t realize that it was a tornado until it was too late,’’ she said. “Everything is gone.’’

Destructive, deadly tornadoes are uncommon, but not unprecedented, in Massachusetts, and are typically the product of warm, moist air at the surface colliding with colder air aloft. The result can be explosive, as residents of Great Barrington can attest. In 1995, a Memorial Day twister killed three people hunkered down in their car.

One of the nation’s most lethal single tornadoes took aim at Worcester in 1953, killing 94.