WESTFIELD – New England is known for its unpredictable weather, hence the old adage of “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”
But the weather events occurring during 2011 set new standards for the vicarious nature of Mother Nature.
The year began with what seemed to be endless snowstorms and blizzards during January. The snow packed on roofs, causing several to collapse under the weight. The weight of the snow pack caused roofs to leak and, in particular, the flat roofs of municipal and commercial buildings. A common sight last winter was people shoveling snow off roofs and, in some cases, using snow blowers to reduce the load stressing roofs.
The January storms resulted in a declaration of emergency and the deployment of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assess the cost of snow removal efforts by communities in Western Massachusetts. FEMA staff was pulled from across the country to set up a temporary field office here in Westfield, filling the entire top floor of the Westwood office complex.
The FEMA process was winding down, with an early summer end date to close that office, when the next weather event, the June 1 tornado, struck Western Massachusetts. That tornado, which touched down initially in Westfield, then tore eastward through Hampden County, resulted in a second emergency declaration. FEMA again ramped up its response to the natural disaster.
While emergency management agencies were still dealing with the tornado damage, which included repairing the roof of Munger Hill Elementary School, the third weather disaster stuck the region on Sunday, Aug. 28 when Tropical Storm Irene deluged the region. The storm dropped between four to six inches of rain in Westfield. The worst of the storm in Western Massachusetts was in the Berkshire hill towns were between eight and 12 inches of rain fell, turning small streams into raging rivers.
Many of those streams empty into the Westfield River Basin. The river rose nearly 13 feet in several hours, as the storm water surged down from the surrounding hill towns, cresting at more than 20 feet in Westfield, well above the 14-foot flood stage.
The storm flooded roads, neighborhoods in low lying areas of the city and washed out roads in the hill towns. The flood water forced Westfield to release water from the Granville Reservoir when the over flow began to wash out. Springfield also released water from the Cobble Mountain Reservoir because of the volume of water surging over the spillway. Both of the reservoir dumped water into the Loomis Street Brook and Little River which also caused flooding in low lying areas along the Little River Basin.
The fourth event was the freak Oct. 29 storm which dumped nearly a foot of wet, sticky snow in the region. The wet snow clung to trees still in full foliage, snapping trucks, limbs and branches. Utility poles and wires were knocked down, leaving residents without power for nearly a week following the freak storm.
Westfield Gas & Electric Department officials have projected the cost of that storm at more than $2 million and it could reach as high as $2.5 million when all of the facilities damaged during that event are tallied, making it the most costly weather event in the century-long history of the municipal utility.
The FEMA staffers are still in Westfield, long after they expected as they continue to assess damage and process payments to local communities affected by the bizarre weather of 2011.
