MONSON, Mass. — The sight of flattened homes, peeled-off roofs and the toppled steeple of a 140-year-old church stunned New Englanders after deadly tornadoes swept through Massachusetts, striking an area of the country that rarely sees such severe twisters.
The storms, which came with fair warning but still shocked with their intensity, killed at least three people, injured about 200 and wreaked damage in a string of 18 cities and villages across central and western Massachusetts.
If the National Weather Service agrees that Wednesday’s three deaths are tornado-related, it would bring the year’s U.S. toll to 522 and make this year the deadliest for tornadoes since 1950. The highest recorded toll was 519 in 1953; four deaths from Joplin, Mo., that were added Thursday tied the record. There were deadlier years before 1950, but those counts were based on estimates.
Tornadoes are not unheard of in New England — the downtown of Connecticut’s largest city was devastated by one last June — so many people heeded warnings. That didn’t guarantee their survival; among the dead was a mother who shielded her teenage daughter as they huddled in a bathtub.
But in many cases, doing the right thing — quickly — helped save lives.
Inside the Adams Hometown Market in Monson, produce manager Frank Calabrese made a quick decision that helped keep customers and employees from coming to harm. Calabrese herded them into a walk-in freezer, where six to eight minutes passed while the building shook and windows shattered.
“What else are we going to do?” he said. “We sat inside and waited it out.”
No one in the store suffered a scratch.
The storms hit as many people headed home from work Wednesday, paralyzing motorists who could see the twister coming at them.
A fixed television camera caught dramatic images of a debris-filled funnel cloud crossing the Connecticut River and slamming into Springfield, a working-class city of about 140,000 residents, where it cut a swath of destruction 10 blocks wide in some spots.
Authorities initially believed at least four people died but later determined that a heart-attack death in Springfield was likely unrelated to the storms. In addition to the mother who shielded her daughter, a man died when a tree struck a van in West Springfield, and another person died in Brimfield, though authorities have not released details.
