“They need to make a Lifetime movie out of me,” said Jack C. Swan.
A boat at the home of Adam Korabowski, at 663 Stony Hill Road, is covered by downed trees following Tuesday's storm.WILBRAHAM - Walking down Springfield Street and its arteries, it is difficult not to recall the devastation wrought by the June 1 tornado, although the damage from Tuesday's storm is less severe.
Wednesday morning, traffic signals were dead, trees were down all over, crews from National Grid, the Department of Public Works and the water department were out in full force. Roads were closed, deep muddy scars were left in front yards where machinery had cleared debris and, once again, families and neighbors were coming together to rebuild.
Heather Mercier suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The stress of rebuilding after the June 1 tornado has sent her to the hospital three times. The house on Tinkham Road she shares with her partner of 13 years was damaged, but she said it’s repairable.
During Tuesday’s storm, the couple were uprooted again when a tree fell on the mobile home the insurance company provided, which was set up in the backyard.
They were sitting in the house when the sky got dark and their phones started ringing. Friends from as far away as New York were calling to let them know about the tornado warning issued by the National Weather Service.
A tornado has not been reported.
Then the rain, 50-mile-an-hour winds and hail came, reducing visibility to the point they couldn’t see a ladder propped against the front of the house. Mercier said she went to the sliding rear door and managed to see through the weather, watching the tree destroy the only safe place the pair had to live.
“Our work to rebuild was just undone yesterday,” she said. “It’s just been so hectic.”
They will move to a hotel until the mobile home can be repaired or replaced. The workers clearing the yard and helping them reestablish themselves in the place they’ve called home since 2004 have been “fantastic,” she said.
“We’re also very fortunate,” she said, compared to some of her neighbors who have lost so much more.
The front wall of Jack C. Swan’s house on Evangeline Drive was devastated in the tornado. From the street, the furniture in his living room and the trees in his backyard can be seen. The massive hole had been covered in plywood and the roof, which was peppered with large holes, had been tarped before Tuesday's storm.
All that work was undone, and more, as high winds tore beams from the roof and scattered them in the front yard. A broken end table that had been on the first floor was blown upstairs. The mobile home in the side yard, provided by his insurance company, was damaged by trees but repaired Wednesday morning.
Trees fell on the cabana house behind his pool, a utility pole was leveled and replaced with a makeshift beam structure and the rain had caused even more water damage throughout the house.
“Every time I think, ‘What else could go wrong,’ something else does,” Swan said.
In between the two storms, he said, he suffered a heart attack. While he was on his way to the hospital his partner of 31 years, who had been in poor health, passed away.
“They need to make a Lifetime movie out of me,” he said.
Swan’s neighbor, Dennis C. Anti, said his heavy, new glass patio table was thrown into the other furniture and shattered on Tuesday. Safety glass was strewn across the deck. Shingles from Swan’s house about 50 feet away were in his yard.
Anti’s house had also sustained tornado damage. He said about a dozen trees were torn up, windows shattered, the basketball hoop he built with his son 35 years ago was blown away and he hasn’t seen the water fountain from his backyard ever since.
"You never know how much you'll miss a tree until it's gone," he said. "You can't get ready for one of these things."
But he has kept a sunny disposition despite his troubles, praising his neighbors, volunteer groups and government officials who helped with the clean-up.
“If this had to happen to me, I’m glad it was in Wilbraham,” he said.
He said he and his neighbors convened after Tuesday's storm to make sure everyone was okay.
A Tinkham Road resident, an elderly woman who lives alone and asked not to be identified, said nothing was different in this storm.
"Just go back to June 1 and it's the same thing," she said. A relative said the woman had gone into the basement Tuesday night, feeling "overwhelmed" from the catastrophes she's seen these past two months.
Selectman Patrick J. Brady said Tuesday that "ground zero" for the storm appeared to be Tinkham Road.
On Tuesday, the transmission lines for the East Longmeadow Shaker Road substation were downed, leaving the entire town without power. The substation's tornado damage had just been repaired.
As of 2 p.m., National Grid was reporting 2,817 Wilbraham residents still without power.
The winds also damaged the roof over Minnechaug Regional High School's pool and ripped up the scoreboard on the football field.