By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — As cars sat at odd angles where they had slid, and vehicle owners shoveled snow and ice and spun their tires, it looked like a typical winter day on East Avenue. Except it was June 24.

By DONNA KENNY KIRWAN

PAWTUCKET — As cars sat at odd angles where they had slid, and vehicle owners shoveled snow and ice and spun their tires, it looked like a typical winter day on East Avenue. Except it was June 24.
A fast-moving rain and hail storm on Tuesday afternoon caused flooding and, oddly enough, vehicles to be stuck in snowy slush in several locations throughout the city. The torrential rain, which began at about 1:30 p.m. and lasted until approximately 2:45 p.m., later turned to mothball-sized pellets of hail, which piled up to six inches or more in certain areas.
Particularly hard hit was East Avenue, in front of the old Boys and Girls Club, Adams Furniture store and the retail block holding the Singer sewing machine repair and other shops. A wave of water gushed down the hill from Park Place, uplifting several parked cars and causing a 7-foot pile of hail and snowy sluch to accumulate.
According to Fire Department Battalion Chief Ronald Doire, substantial flooding also occurred on a section of Armistice Blvd, near the intersection with the George Bennett Highway, and along the Roosevelt Avenue extension. Additionally, he said, the soutbound lanes of I-95 near the George Street overpass, to become impassable for a brief time.
“Between the hail and the water, we were very busy. We received about 18 calls in an hour,” said Doire. He added, however, that except for responding to a few box alarms for flooding and a chimney that was struck by lightening on a house on Riverview Avenue, there was nothing too significant that firefighters had to deal with.
Doire said that rescue workers did treat two homeless people who were trying to take shelter from the pelting hail near the power plant  along the Blackstone River. He said that firefighters were flagged down by a passerby who pointed out the soaked and shivering couple. He said they were transported to the Memorial Hospital as a precaution.
Robert Howe, the city’s emergency management director, said that he, too, had been busy, coordinating between the city’s public safety and Highway departments. He watched as a city bulldozer worked to clear the pile of hail and slush on East Avenue and credited the DPW Department for their help in freeing immobilized vehicles.
Eliezer Caraballo said that he and his wife and two children had come to East Avenue to shop for furniture at the Adams Furniture store. Instead, he ended up borrowing a snow shovel to help a young woman whose car was stuck. “This is unbelievable,” he said, shaking his head, while his son, Eliezer, 10, and daughter, Mariellie, 12, took turns clearing a path in front of the store.
Bernarda Garcia, whose Nissan Altima had been swept from its parking spot and moved on top of a sidewalk by the rushing water, surveyed her wet and muddied floorboard while she waited for her father to arrive. She credited Caraballo and another passerby, Jesus Fernandes, with helping shovel snowy aterial from her back tires, but said she was afraid to driver her car home.
Jose Monteiro, a customer at the Simplicity Salon on East Avenue, had come outside with others to survey the unusual scene. He described three to four-foot waves that came down East Avenue, causing several vehicles to float from their parked locations. “I saw a man trying to ride his bike who was all cut up from trying to make it through,” he stated.
After moving his own car to higher ground, Monteiro stayed outside to talk to others from the nearby businesses. “It was the conversation among the people that was really special,” he said. “Some of the older people were talking about this being Biblical while the younger people talked about global warming,” he said.