By The Associated Press

Fast-moving storms whipped through eastern New Hampshire on Tuesday, bringing golf-ball sized hail that dented cars and broke windows and lightning that damaged at least two homes and struck a tree at a day camp.

“In 21 years I’ve been here, this is the worst storm I’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen hail that big in my life,” said Exeter Lt. Steve Dockery. Five police cruisers were heavily damaged in the storm.

Employees at Foss Motors watched as the hail pummeled a couple of hundred cars on their lot, denting them so badly, it looked like they had been hit with a hammer.

The roof at a Walgreen’s store in Exeter collapsed from heavy rain. “I saw it coming first before I heard it,” said Matt Fitzgerald, store manager. “The customers were safe, the employees were safe. We’re thankful for that.”

Exeter Hospital lost power at one point and was on back-up generators. There were some power outages in Exeter, East Kingston, Plaistow, Atkinson and Hampton.

The storm also damaged glass at the historic Gilman Garrison House, built as a fortified house in the early 1700s to protect sawmills and waterpower sites.

Children at a YMCA day camp in Kingston got a scare when lightning struck a tree. No one was hit, but some children complained of tingling in their hands and were taken to the hospital as a precaution.

Meteorologist Butch Roberts at the weather office in Gray said the radar indicated a tornado was rotating high in the storm clouds.

No immediate sightings of a funnel cloud were reported.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for eastern Rockingham County shortly before 12:30 p.m., saying a severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was passing through Exeter and headed toward Hampton, Greenland and Rye within minutes.

“The radar indicated a tornado. There was rotation,” he said.

By 1 p.m., the storms had moved out to sea, but the weather service was tracking more of them. A severe thunderstorm watch for Cheshire and Hillsborough counties was in effect until 8 p.m.

At Foss Manufacturing in Hampton, employees took shelter in the basement as the sky went black and hail began falling.

“The sky went black, with lightning,” said Foss Manufacturing employee JoAnn Jackson. “It was pretty scary for a while.”

In Rye, the lights went out at the Seacoast Science Center just as dark storm clouds moved in. As a precaution, workers moved about 75 day campers away from windowed areas to an interior room.

“The worst was probably about 12:35 – is when it got really, really dark and we had a little power outage,” said science center President Wendy Lull. “The rain is pretty much coming straight down, but in torrents.”

Lightning is suspected of causing fires in Northwood and Wilmot earlier in the day. As the storm swept eastward, hail and strong winds halted traffic on Interstate 95 near the Hampton tolls, the New Hampshire Union Leader reported.

At Hampton Beach, about 2,000 beachgoers sought shelter from rain, not hail, in the Hampton Beach Casino or in shops that line ocean.

Amy Bassett of the state Division of Parks and Recreation said a lifeguard on an ATV evacuated Hampton Beach before the storm hit.

“He said when the storm came, there wasn’t a soul on the beach,” she said.

Bassett said Rye Harbor State Park, where the division’s regional office is located, took a worse beating than Hampton Beach. She said parks workers in Rye reported heavy thunder and lightning, rain and three-quarter-inch hail.