Mass tor nado
 

just hit sturbridge with much damage
heading towards worcester and 395

heading to whitensville and on to Brocton

6:55PM don't believe the radar, no yet a drop of rain!

i guess we got off easy

hurricane season is supposed to be BIG
with more of them

Pictures showing a fair amount of damage to Springfield, downtown. Some larger blown out and damaged 4-8 story buildings.

The building my girlfriend lived in 3 years ago while at Springfield College took a direct hit. A friend of hers that's there for some summer courses sent her these pics a few hours ago...

http://i.imgur.com/BLKqw.png

http://i.imgur.com/vhKdW.png

Talking to your g/f right now (she's visiting my daughter), and she was telling me about the destruction. Very unusual for Massachusetts. Barely got a drop of rain in Truro though.

Bad out here in KC too. Amazing weather, it's the rapture....

Been a nerved up afternoon/evening. Watched the first funnel from my office window today. had to detour a few times to get home only to get on my street and freak out looking up in the sky (went straight for the basement) where we watched the hail and listened to the warnings of #2 ripping through the area on the radio. My part of Westfield made out ok but just a few miles across town was hit, through West Springfield & Springfield. Local news has sky cam footage was amazing as it hits the river.

Tornado touches down in downtown Spfld


Thoughts going out tonite to fellow W.Mass residents that were not so lucky.

I just got back into sturbridge from the cape. This vacation has bee a disaster. The amount of damage is amazing here. It was strange though. The path of the tornado is horrendous, but when you get out of that stretch you would never know we had anything more than a shower. I only saw it at night, tomorrow will be interesting for sure. I will grab some pics.

Rob, you need any help, PM me. I'm only about 20 minutes away. headed out now to fish but will be back after dawn.

Thanks Paul. Im pretty much home bound now. A lot of the town is closed, so i think im homebound for now. Cant view the damages. Scary stuff for sure.

I called my Mom yesterday afternoon cuz she works in Springlfield. She was in doors safe for the first one and then drove home but got caught in the second one as she was driving over the memorial bridge. She is ok but very shook up. I've been on the phone most fthe night with friends and family out there. It's looking like the first one was a strong F3 or even F4 from the extent of the damage.

thankfully
 

Tornados in mass seem to hop scotch around and don't last too long in any one area although the Mass PIKE seems to act as corridor or tornado alley and channels the direction...

the debris pile that gets sucked up by the funnel cloud seems to build up in the JOPLIN style tornado ....starts small then grows to enormous proportions.

i keep thinking about the description this gentleman from Joplin said about this one car or truck, he wasn't even sure what it was even from looking at it ...totally wrapped around a tree and it was completely unidentifiable. talk about POWER

Reports are that first tornado was on the ground for up to 45minutes which is extremely rare here. The 2nd one seemed to hop around although technically if a tornado lifts off the ground and drops down again they count it as a separate tornado. That's why some reports are saying up to 7 tornados total. Monson and Brimfield look like bombs were dropped on them. Springfield is a mess right now. My parents live in feeding hills and they didn't get touched but it was only a few miles away from the affected areas.

Yeah, my folks are camping at Wells State Park in Sturbridge. They didn;t know what I was talking about when I called them to warn them. A few minutes later the one went through sturbridge. Missed them.
Seems like the movie 2012 might come true.
The end is near.
Catch as many fish as you can..........
Utterly incredible.
We didn't even get one raindrop in Westport

I just tried to get to a friends house in wales. I couldt get there but their house, horse barn and cars were all destroyed. Every road is blocked. This is surreal.

wow
 

Man were you/they LUCKY ....many of those campsites are up on a hill .... but the tor nado zipped right down the mass pike
and that's just about where it starts in the town of Sturbridge.

Sorry to hear about your friends place ROB

No getting to look for people? Cell / Power service still down in the area?

Good luck - hope you can find your friends safe.

western mass
 

Some pics from my end of state.my town westfield had only one section hit hard .These pics are from springfield.

a couple years ago
 

it hit in Brookfield ...

and i got out of my car to look at these
huge oak trees that would take four to five
grown men holding hands to circumvent the trees diameter

the tops were literally twisted off like they were weeds.

sister in law in springfield had a tree hit the house, but it sounds like it was minimal damage as the tree almost missed the house.

Im with-in a 1/8 of a mile of the path through Hampden, Wilbraham, and Monson area!!! Little damage at my home but INSANE DEVISTATION doesnt even describe it. Houses leveled trees everywhere and cars thrown 20-30 feet!! Special thanks to all workers from all over the northeast who have dropped everything to come help dig out!!!!! Fishing room is fine though<Thank God>!

Took a ride and its amazing to see how "the path" just tears up a section and just outside the path looks fine. Some roads still closed and while some have power restored there are many still without.

They were saying yesterday on the news that it was likely an EF-3 class tornado.

I have a friend in Monson that lost a entire detached 3 car garage and took his whole chimney off his house! Luckily he did not lose his boat. He lives not 10 miles from me, scary to think if that twister zigged when it zagged it could have been here. Hope everyones friends and family are accounted for and doing ok.

Kevin

Late to the topic I know - I was on 291 headed into Springfield when hail forced me to pull over about 4:30 - I still had not heard anything but the usual warnings . . . the tornado past me within 1 mile I would estimate - cell phone pictures :err:

I few more

The first picture you can see someone trappped on the third floor balcony of an apartment building that lost the top floor - a fisrt responder is in the foreground making his way toward the building.

the second is what's left of the South End COmmunity Center.

Third is a shot of what just about every street in the south end of Springfield looked like.

All these pictures were taken between 4:30 - 4:45 on Wednesday - then I got out of Dodge and let the professionals do their job

I visited my friends house yesterday to help out and took a couple of crappy cell phone shots. They do not do it justice. Just imagine trees as far as you can see. I know that there is a temptation to drive out and see whats going on. I actually teared up as i drove into Brimfield. If you decide to take a trip to see what happened, do yourself a favor. Bring a pair of work gloves and have your boots on. The people that are there will appreciate more than you can imagine. And please dont drive through slow and take pictures. These folks are in no mood for it. I came very close to getting into an accident when a woman decided to almost stop her car on Rt 20 to take a picture. She was taking a shot of the house of a guy i know well. Its destroyed. Sorry to rant but if ya want to see it in person , get out and get dirty. I would like to shoot the plane down that is taking people on tours of the devastation. I hope that they donate the money taken in by the charter of the plane.


Crap, i cant seem to make the pictures bigger.

almost 70 years ago
 

i guess it was the no warnings time period

but in 1953.... woostah had it's worst tor nado
that killed 93 people....

presumably because they didn't have
the advanced warning system