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Mayor Sarno Says Springfield Has Made Transformative Recovery 10 Years After Tornado

a house under construction
WAMC

    Today marks the 10-year anniversary of one of the worst natural disasters in western Massachusetts history.

    Late in the afternoon of June 1st, 2011, a tornado with winds estimated at 160 miles an hour devastated a third of the city of Springfield.  500 buildings were destroyed. 

    The tornado stayed on the ground for over an hour and traveled 39 miles from Westfield to Charlton.  There were 3 deaths.  200 people injured.  Damage was estimated at $140 million.

    WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief Paul Tuthill spoke with Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno who recalled the day ten years ago and reflected on how the city has recovered in the decade since.

   

Paul Tuthill is WAMC’s Pioneer Valley Bureau Chief. He’s been covering news, everything from politics and government corruption to natural disasters and the arts, in western Massachusetts since 2007. Before joining WAMC, Paul was a reporter and anchor at WRKO in Boston. He was news director for more than a decade at WTAG in Worcester. Paul has won more than two dozen Associated Press Broadcast Awards. He won an Edward R. Murrow award for reporting on veterans’ healthcare for WAMC in 2011. Born and raised in western New York, Paul did his first radio reporting while he was a student at the University of Rochester.
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