When the category 1 tornado touched down in the quiet Pumpkin Hollow section of Conway Saturday evening, it immediately disrupted the lives of at least a half dozen families, like a huge boulder dropped in a placid pond. Waves rippled out in destructive concentric circles across the town.
The Whately Road neighborhood looked like it had been attacked by a howling, angry giant that stomped on the barn of John and Jan Maggs and their antique business housed inside. It tore away at the walls and roofs of several nearby houses and the United Church of Conway.
Although many homes were occupied, amazingly no one died or was seriously injured. Mr. and Mrs. Maggs, inside their home, feet away from the barn when it was flattened, were unscathed, but only because they had arrived home from a trip moments before and delayed working in the barn that night.
At 100 Whately Road, the 80- to 110-mph winds ripped through an 1860s house owned by Steven and Jeanne Thomas, tearing off its front wall and roof, while they and a half dozen dinner guests were gathered in the rear of the house.
Other homes were made uninhabitable, and the storm punched a hole in the roof of the recently renovated 19th-century United Church and may have caused more serious structural damage that has yet to be assessed. Power was knocked out to about 90 percent of the town and most roads were left impassable.
Saturday’s tornado first touched down in Goshen at 7:18 p.m. and the wind knocked trees onto two seasonal homes across from each other on Pine Road. No one was in either of those houses. The tornado left much of Goshen without electricity, and Route 9 was closed by downed trees until about 4:30 p.m. Sunday.
The tornado — the first ever reported in Massachusetts during February — then continued on into Conway where its path was as wide as 200 yards. It felled thousands of trees.
And while the tornado did not hit Chesterfield, the storm’s strong winds brought a tree down on the roof of a small house at 202 Sugar Hill Road, destroying it.
Owner Jennifer Abromowitz, who was talking on the phone at her kitchen table when the roof collapsed, was not physically injured.
Physics tells us that for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and so it was in the Hilltowns as soon as the storm weakened and drifted off. Concentric circles of care, compassion and help immediately began to coalesce around the affected neighborhoods and towns.
By Monday, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, state Rep. Stephen Kulik of Worthington and state Sen. Adam Hinds of Pittsfield arrived in Conway to praise local relief efforts and to promise what aid the state government might muster.
Other responders like the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency stepped in to coordinate with local police and fire departments. Tree service trucks, utility crews and firefighters disentangled toppled trees and damaged houses from power lines and cleared roads. Area firefighters came to the aid of Conway’s volunteers, some fanning out across the outlying parts of the powerless town performing welfare checks and helping how they could.
Closer in were the many friends and neighbors who almost immediately responded to help go through the ruins of the Maggses’ barn to salvage their business inventory of antiques, and who helped the Thomases and others board up exposed walls and ceilings ahead of insurance adjusters and building inspectors.
Relief funds were almost immediately created at local banks and online through the Conway Firemen’s Auxiliary, and townspeople responded.
The story was the same in Chesterfield, where Abromowitz expressed gratitude to her community — the neighbors and town officials who helped her in the storm’s aftermath.
A refrain heard often since the weekend came from residents who lived away from where the tornado touched down, but realized that the twister could just as easily have damaged their homes and upended their lives. That kind of realization tends to make people pull together closer still.
When the mess is cleared and the repairs completed, it will be the care and concern of that inner circle of friends and neighbors who were relied on heavily that will be remembered the longest and appreciated the most.