West Neck Road was closed for several hours Wednesday night after a large tree branch broke and fell onto the street, falling just short of a resident's front fence and taking down telephone wires. No one was injured and there was no other property damage caused by the fall.

According to witnesses, the tree branch snapped around 7 p.m. and crashed across the road just minutes after heavy traffic had passed by. The only person nearby was a man walking his dog on the sidewalk, who ran once the branch came down, multiple witnesses said.

The owners and tenants of 63 West Neck Road watched as police set up caution tape and redirected traffic around the fallen branches. The tree, which stands on the property, was "hundreds of years old," said longtime resident Beth Harwood, whose family has owned the house since it was built in the early 1800s.

Her husband, Rob Lesser, said he was in the backyard when the branch came down.

"We heard it before it was cracking," Lesser said. "It sounded like gunshots."

Across the street, Diane Dimitri sat on her porch with her dog, Malika, at 64 West Neck Rd, just a few feet from where the branch landed. She said she was upstairs when she heard the tree fall.

"The dog came up the stairs to warn me," Dimitri said as she watched Highway Department workers clear the leaves and branches from the road. She said that she felt extremely lucky because the tree could have easily hit her home or car.

"I almost left my car there," she laughed.

David Dimitri, Diane's husband, said the tree sounded like a thunderclap as it fell and snapped without warning.

"It's really something you expect in a windstorm, not just out of the blue," he said.

Though no cause for the collapse had been determined, Ken Newell, who rents an upstairs apartment at 63 West Neck Road, said he had an idea who the culprit was.

"The main suspect is this big woodpecker," Newell deadpanned before cracking a smile.