Wind downs trees, electrical wires

A cold front produced gusts of up to 60 mph in the D.C. area Thursday night, causing a tree to fall on two houses in Northeast Washington and felling a tree that crushed a car in Southwest, authorities said. No injuries were reported.

The strong winds were part of a system of scattered thunderstorms that entered from West Virginia and were expected to move through the area by midnight.

The tree that fell on the two houses in the 1200 block of Neal Street NE caused significant structural damage, said D.C. fire and EMS spokesman Pete Piringer. Residents of the homes were able to exit without injury after the incident about 8:30, he said.

Elsewhere, a tree slammed into a car in the 1700 block of Independence Avenue SW.

Firefighters also responded to calls for electrical wires down at about a dozen locations around the city, but Pepco reported no major outages as of 9 p.m.

No major incidents were reported in suburban areas.

-- Clarence Williams