Street after street in East Forest Park was pockmarked with downed trees, phone poles and wires, overturned cars, and houses with varying degrees of damage. Watch video
David Gawron gestures to where his house used to be. The tornado blew away his Cape-style home Wednesday while he hid in the basement.SPRINGFIELD – All David Gawron has right now is his life and a hole in the ground.
Gawron lives at 127 Pennsylvania Ave. or at least until Wednesday afternoon, he did.
His Cape-style home of two years was destroyed by the tornado that swept through Springfield.
Destroyed as in blown completely away, leaving nothing behind but the cellar and foundation.
His home off South Branch Parkway was part of a section of East Forest Park just east of Cathedral High School that was particularly hard hit by the tornado.
Street after street in this residential neighborhood was pockmarked with downed trees, phone poles and wires, overturned cars, and houses with varying degrees of damage.
On Pennsylvania Avenue, there were four houses adjacent to Gawron’s that were marked condemned. Another house down the street was also gone.
“You hear ‘severe weather is coming this way’ but you don’t think ‘tornado,’” he said. “You don’t think that here.”
Gawron was home at the time, but he did not have his television on, and the weather alert application he has on his cell phone never alerted him to a tornado warning, he said.
He said it wasn’t until he looked outside that he became worried.
“The sky was clear and then it became yellowish orange,” he said. “Then it was as if someone gathered up all the clouds in the sky in their hands and dropped them right here.”
Seeing that, he immediately ran for the basement and hid under a sink. He said he does not remember running for the basement and consciously deciding to where to hide; he just did it.
And then the house was gone, he said.
He said he is staying with his parents until his housing situation is sorted out.
In good spirits generally even though all his possessions were scattered to the winds except for his truck – and that was on its roof – Gawron said, “I’m going to clean up as much as I can and then call the insurance company. I’m not really thinking that far ahead.”
An area of dozens of blocks in East Forest Park remains inaccessible to the outside world. Downed trees and wires limit access by car, and the widespread power outages means no television, no telephone, no Internet.
A Republican reporter walking through the neighborhood was approached by some residents to ask what sort of shape the rest of the city is in, and if there were any areas hit harder than East Forest Park.
With the thrill of cheating death subsiding, many have begun to realized it is going to be a long time before things return to normal.
“There’s no information,” said Lynn Bechard, who was seated on a lawn chair at her Cambria Street home with neighbors Pat and Jim Fahey. Trapped on their street by downed trees, and with no electricity, the three sat in the driveway and tried to gather news from passersby.
Jim Fahey said he misses being able to watch the continual loop of weather information and stock market reports on cable television. Pat Fahey said she would like to know if the dark clouds overhead were just regular clouds or the return of a tornado.
From left to right, Lynn Bechard, Pat Fahey and Jim Fahey sit in lawn chairs on Cambria Street. With no power for the immediate future, the three spoke of how the storm has cut off their access to the rest of the city. “No one has transistor radios anymore,” she said.
Bechard said they have no idea when the power will be restored. “We’re hearing anywhere from 5 to 14 days,” she said. “We have to plan if it’s going to be 14 days.”