Touring the Springfield Tornado's Aftermath
Former North Adams resident and sometime contributor Sharon Leary moved back to her native Springfield last year. She contacted us the morning after one or more tornadoes hit the city on Wednesday night, trying to relate the damage to us. We asked her to send us photos and she did, along with her experience of what happened. .jpg) The storm hit a quiet residential neighborhood not far from Leary's home. Cathedral High School was severely damaged. See more photos here. |
Instead, I took a temporary job assignment for the day in West Springfield. I was released at 4 and, after chatting with the administrative head about possible work in the future, I headed out on Route 5 into what I thought was a thunderstorm. I reached the West Springfield entrance of the Memorial Bridge around 4:15; it was raining but nothing out of the ordinary. I continued my route home, which took me over the South End Bridge into Springfield and up Sumner Avenue. I arrived home around 4:25 p.m.
I ran into the house because the rain was beginning to come down, said hello to Mom and noticed that the cable was out (I realized over the next 24 hours how much I depend upon electronics, but more about this later). I went to the kitchen window and noticed some debris flying around in a circular pattern off in the not-too-far distance. The sky was a very eerie grey, and it felt like you could swim through the air because of the humidity.
The power went out at 4:30. It did not return for another 24 hours.
My family sat and chatted and waited. Usually during a T-storm, the power will go out for a bit, but will come back on within an hour. Because of the heat, most of the folks in our neighborhood were outside seeking some relief from the heat. We realized something was up when a neighbor across the street was holding a HAM radio. Slowly, a group of us, who were getting nosey, approached him. He told us that there was a tornado in the area and that we were still under a tornado watch.
A tornado in Springfield? I'm sorry could you repeat that?
I was surprised, but not totally flabbergasted. In 1979, our little part of Springfield had a burst of wind, or what we called the Tulsa Street tornado, that lifted two metal sheds, knocked down fences and broke windows. One of those windows was in our bathroom. Unfortunately for my Mom, she happened to be in there when it happened. I can still remember her screaming for my father. Luckily no one was hurt.
Talking to one of our neighbors, I asked him if he had seen anything. He told me that he had seen the funnel. We compared notes and apparently I had missed the funnel, but saw the debris trail. Most neighbors ended up cooking out on their grill that night, us included. We broke out our radio, candles, and flashlights and made sure to keep the fridge closed. Not knowing where the tornado struck, I called my brother who lives in West Springfield to check on his family. They were fine.
Then our phone started to ring. Our landline phone that is. My dad worked for the former New England Telephone Co. and prefers a landline phone to cell phone. My cell was receiving calls, in fact a friend from Vermont managed to get through, but I couldn't call out or text out. My father has six brothers and sisters, so each sibling was calling to check on each other. Thankfully everyone was OK; turns out we were the closest to the tornado.
We spent the night listening to the radio and trying to play Yahtzee. It was evident that the television and electricity was sorely missed in our home. Conversation dragged. Had we forgotten how to converse? Recently, I was thinking about what it would be like to have lived in a time that had fewer modern conveniences and electronic stimulation. I had actually convinced myself that I was born in the wrong era. Now, I'm not so sure.
I awoke early on June 2, dressed, had breakfast and then jumped on my bike to go check out the extended neighborhood to my parents' chagrin. First I checked to see if there was power in East Longmeadow. We live on the line between East Longmeadow and Springfield. As I approached a major intersection and the traffic lights were still out, the bank was closed, and the parking lot for the local Big Y was nearly empty, I had my answer. I did speak to a local police officer who said we would be lucky if power was back on by 11 p.m. Not what I wanted to hear.
I then headed over to the area that was rumored to have had some damage. It wasn't long before I saw people standing around and looking at some trees that were pulled up by their roots. I ran into my sixth-grade teacher and chatted with him for a few minutes. Made sure he was OK and moved on to where I was told first-responders from the eastern Mass. were gathering.Before I left the house I made sure to take my camera, some water and put on my reflective vest. I thought since the traffic lights were out, it was probably best to wear something everyone could see. I brought my camera because I thought I would snap a few photos. I wasn't prepared for what I saw.
As I approached Lancaster Avenue off Plumtree Road in Springfield, I was shocked to see a tree had fallen across the road and blocked access in and out of the street. Now bear in mind I had no power and had not seen any images of the damage yet. I stopped to listen to a first responder who was telling a group about her night and how scared she had been when a second line of thunderstorms passed through. I headed up Harmon Avenue, passing some downed power lines with trepidation.
Harmon Avenue caught me off guard. Every house on the street had branches or entire trees down in yards, on buildings and on cars. When I came across the first car that had been crushed by a fallen tree, my thoughts immediately went to the woman who died in her car in West Springfield.
Farther down the street, one family with power had put out coffee for neighbors. Everywhere I went, neighbors were helping one another.
Toward the end of the street, I talked to a woman who told me her front yard was covered with branches and they had just finished clearing as much as they could. They were waiting for a chainsaw to get through the rest. She asked if I had been up to Cathedral High School yet, and I said no. She told me I was going to be amazed.
As I approached Surrey Road, where Cathedral is located, I could definitely sense a change. For one thing, there wasn't a lot of obstruction of my view of the sky. The front of Cathedral definitely had some damage, but I noticed a lot of people walking toward the back of the school. I know that area well because both my brothers played baseball on the field there and we would sled down a hill there in the winter.
As I biked around the back, I noted that trees were twisted and mangled, wires were everywhere, and trash was disbursed throughout the grounds and something else: an odd sort of silence. I stopped my bike in the middle of the parking lot. I think that is when the shock of it all hit me. There was a hole in the back of the school, cars strewn across the lot, windows blown out and the football field was destroyed.
As I stopped at the foot of the hill, I was assaulted with a vision that did not make sense. A whole area that was populated with trees looked to have been ripped up, torn apart and tossed casually aside. I could hear a lone mockingbird on an upended tree singing different calls. I think it was looking for a mate or its nest. It was one of the loneliest sounds I have ever heard. My heart sank.Overhead, helicopters were flying in a circular pattern. I headed over to the pond behind the school and was again taken aback at what I was seeing. A Coke machine had been blown up into the air and dropped on the ground, an SUV was partially submerged, and just beyond that a Dumpster from the school. But that wasn't the worst of it.
I could see the houses that bordered the pond had taken a severe hit. Trees were down and again I was surprised to see so much sky. I biked over to Roosevelt Avenue where a flurry of activity was taking place. Tree workers were everywhere; homeowners were bringing in coolers of ice. Utility poles were cracked in half and there were emergency personnel every 10 feet. As I biked along, almost every house I passed had a tree implanted into it or part of it ripped away.
Two sights that still get to me are of the fireplace with the tree shoved into it and the back deck of one house sitting on the front lawn of another. Then there was the hot tub sitting atop a pile of branches in someone's front yard. Riding my bike along, there was a constant stream of people walking the street. I noticed as I moved along, that a lot of them were gawkers. One woman stopped me to ask "Is there really a car in the pond?" I overheard one teen say to a younger sibling, that it looked more like a "tree bomb" than a tornado. All the trees are gone.
It was like walking with tourists through an area that had been recently bombed. The feeling was unsettling.
I talked to a homeowner named Richie, who is recovering from a stroke, and he told me how he and his wife had been visiting with a neighbor who recently had brain surgery and they parted ways just before 4:30. Richie was going to take a nap when his wife said to him, "look at all these birds swirling around." Richie is from the Midwest and knew that his wife was seeing debris and that they were about to get hit by a tornado. They were able to reach their cellar, but not before Richie saw the water from the pond rise about 6 feet in the air as the tornado bore down on them.
Luckily, Richie and his wife did not suffer as much damage as most of their neighbors. Roof shingles, awnings, tree branches, downed wires and dents to his vehicle were what he listed. Richie and another neighbor were able to reach the woman they had been visiting and rescued her from her house. She lost her bedroom on the second floor. Everything just blew away.I asked him how he and his wife survived the night. It was pitch black in our neighborhood. He told me they were fine, thinking it not real, all a dream, until morning came. He also told me that he had heard from other neighbors that some looting had occurred in houses that were not occupied. Shameful.
I left Richie and his wife and headed home. Thankfully, the National Guard had arrived and immediately set up road blocks. They were also assisting in a house-to-house search.
About three blocks away, I noticed that there was a mail truck on the street; the postman was still delivering mail. As I rode on farther, I noticed PVTA buses were on the road, a UPS truck was making deliveries and many people were out running errands. Just like any other day.
The difference between the world I had left and the world I was re-entering did not fail to pass me by. As I approached the streets of our neighborhood, just barely a mile away and with no visible signs that a tornado had recently been in the area, I thanked God for blessing me and my family.
Tags: tornado, weather,
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