A short laser pulse from a 1 J ruby laser is focused at a steel plate. The effect will be that the material surface at the impact point becomes very rapidly heated. Metal vapour leaves the surface at a very high velocity. That is, both a mechanical impulse and local thermal energy are transferred to the plate. The mechanical impulse creates propagating bending waves in the plate, which in turn creates transient sound waves in the surrounding air. The heated spot at the plate surface creates thermal stresses in the plate which g\ve rise to an out-of-plane deformation of the plate. This deformation is added up to the propagating bending waves. These effects are studied in experiments using pulsed holographic interferometry.