Graduate Caroline Eaton: "It's hard to describe how it felt. The air pressure in my head dropped in a really weird way."
SPRINGFIELD – About 600 members of the graduating class at Springfield Technical Community College took part in the graduation ceremony on June 3, a day later than it was originally scheduled, at the MassMutual Center in downtown Springfield.
There were 1,050 graduates this year, the third-largest class in the college’s history.
The event took place only a few blocks away from where a tornado had touched down two days earlier.
The audience was in high spirits, whooping and cheering the graduates, but fell silent when STCC vice president Stephen H. Keller asked for a moment of silence in honor of victims of the disaster.
Since the college draws from many communities in Massachusetts – as well as Connecticut, Vermont and foreign countries – some of the graduates had escaped the devastation.
Others talked about their tornado experiences as they waited in their gowns and mortarboards prior to the ceremony.
“We live on the mountain,” said Nancy Harris, 51, of Wilbraham, who was receiving an associate’s degree in early childhood education. “and we’ve had no power. We have no water, no electricity, no flushing the toilet.”
Harris has a daycare center. She said families of two of the children had been hit much harder than she had, losing their homes. “I’ll get crying if I talk about it,” she said.
Graduate Krisin Walls, 21, also said her home on Roosevelt Avenue in Springfield had been without power for two days.
Sheila Bodon, 27, also lives in Springfield. “Half our siding and the shingles on the roof are gone,” she said. “We have no electricity, no nothing. I’m in a hotel now.” Bodon was getting her degree in architecture.
Joron Stimage-Norwood, 23, was there to pick up a degree in marketing.
“I was working at a convenience store in East Forest Park in Springfield,” said Stimage Norwood of the tornado. “A tree fell on top of the store.
“We’re near some gas stations, and I didn’t know if the pumps would explode. I opened the door and took off.”
Alicia Bonavita, of Springfield, said she and her father lost their cars when trees fell on them, and their garage was also damaged.
“We were in the kitchen when we saw the clouds had gotten dark,” she said. “My dad was on the phone with his girlfriend, and she told him that a tornado was on its way.
“We both went downstairs to the basement. When we went upstairs, we saw the glass from the porch was shattered everywhere.
“I was very scared,” said Bonavita, whose dad is Robert Bonavita. “It was something I never thought I would see in my lifetime.”
She said the disaster had put a damper on her graduation. “I’m excited that I’m graduating,” she said, “but my neighborhood’s destroyed.
Caroline Eaton, 26, said she and her mom had been at the Red Rose restaurant in the South End of Springfield when the tornado hit.
They were part of a group planning to have dinner before attending the STCC’s Honors Convocation, where Eaton was to receive an award as outstanding commercial art student.
A man in the group was alerted by cell phone by his girlfriend that the tornado was on the way. He walked casually to the window and suddenly it was very dark, with the wind coming down the street. “A huge tree just came down,” said Eaton, who lives in Easthampton.
“The owner of the Red Rose said, ‘Everybody get into the bathrooms now!’
“It’s hard to describe how it felt,” said Eaton. The air pressure in my head dropped in a really weird way.”
When the group emerged, said Eaton, “my mom’s car window on the driver’s side was blown out and the mirror was wedged under the back tire.”
They walked by a store whose windows were shattered and whose roof was scattered in pieces on the sidewalk.
In spite of it all, Eaton still went to the Honors Convocation at STCC, even though that, too, was interrupted by directions to go down to the basement.
Harris said she felt the same way about Commencement. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” she said.
Meaghan Mathews-Hegarty, 29, said she and her husband were shopping at Costco in West Springfield when they heard about the tornado on the radio.
They saw the funnel cloud pass over Stop & Shop, and they left for their home in Springfield’s East Forest Park, where much of the devastation occurred.
“We had some shingles come off, the grill got smashed, the fence came down and we had trees come down in front and in back,” said Mathews-Hegarty, who got her degree in occupational therapy with high honors. “But compared to our neighbors, we had it easy.”
She said she and her husband were surprisingly calm, and the experience seemed to bring out the best in people.
Bob Bys, 49, was getting his associates degree in mechanical engineering technology. He said he and his son were on Plumtree Road in Springfield when the trees started moving in the wind.
The woman driving in front of him panicked, slamming her car into reverse and crashing into Bys’s Jeep.
Natasha Oakley, 21, of Springfield, said she was trapped on Bradley Road in Springfield when the tornado came toward her. “My windows broke and my tire went flat,” she said.
Terrified and crying, she walked home, where her mom came running out to meet her. Oakley was about to receive a degree in occupational therapy from STCC.