Five years later, 2011 tornado’s impact still lingers in the ValleyDate: 6/2/2016 On June 1, 2011 a long-track EF3 tornado hit the communities of West Springfield and Springfield before it traveled east to wreak additional havoc in communities including Hampden, Wilbraham, Monson, Brimfield, Sturbridge and Southbridge.
Three people were killed, hundreds were homeless and there were millions of dollars of damage.
Compared to how it could have turned out, we were collectively and relatively lucky.
This week marked the fifth anniversary of the event. I know some people are tired of hearing about the tornado, but for others the tornado still plays a role in their lives.
For those who lost everything or damn near everything, the tornado is still a very recent and painful memory.
In my neighborhood, the tornado damaged and destroyed homes and ruined the Elias Brookings School. Down the hill in the South End, the tornado cut a clear path in that neighborhood as it did in East Forest Park and Sixteen Acres.
It went past my house in a matter of moments. I watched it as it drove shards of debris into our roof, wrecked the back porch, tore off siding, destroyed all of our old growth trees, caused damage to the garage and wrecked a car.
It was genuinely surreal. A tornado in Springfield, Massachusetts?
We were lucky though. We could still live in our home. We still had electricity and gas.
For me I saw the best and worst of humanity during the aftermath. Less than an hour later, there were people with chainsaws laboring to clear my street from the debris of fallen trees and chunks of buildings that were preventing any travel.
The generosity of spirit was wonderful. The street was eventually cleared so emergency vehicles could pass and people who hadn’t been home at the time could get back to their residences.
I also saw the other side – slack-jawed gawkers driving through the neighborhood with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a video camera. I sat on my front steps wanting to give them the one-fingered salute. Neighbors who hadn’t been affected by the tornado at all, lining up to get free meals and bottled water from Red Cross volunteers. People coming to the neighborhood to pick through debris – groups of men with pick up trucks looking for scrap metal and an elderly couple grabbing lawn furniture from a heap in front of what used to be a home.
I appreciated the frequent drive-throughs by Mayor Domenic Sarno who made sure he knew what was happening in the affected neighborhoods.
I know personally of the struggles people had with insurance companies and mortgage holders in the effort to restore their homes or businesses. My wife and I had to hire a public adjustor to wrestle with our insurance company and it took us two years to find a contractor willing to work with us.
Work on restoring our back yard was just finished last year and was not part of any insurance settlement.
Five years later one would think the tornado’s effects would have been largely erased. Not true. There are still vacant lots in the South End and in my neighborhood, for instance, that have not been redeveloped.
There have been many new homes built along Central Street, but there is a capacity for more.
The former Brookings School has been replaced with a beautiful new building, but the only park in the neighborhood has not yet been fully restored where the temporary school building had been.
The most terrible irony is without the tornado, the city would probably never had the funds to replace the old and barely adequate Brookings School. It would have never replaced the brick sidewalks on my streets with safer concrete ones. Would the new homes have happened without the tornado?
At the risk of offending the families of those who perished, there was good that came out of this disaster. As much progress that has been made to restore and heal, much more needs to be done.
This column is the opinion of its author and does not necessarily reflect the position of the owners or advertisers of this newspaper. Got a comment about this story? Go to http://speakout.thereminder.com and let us know.
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