NEAFC 31st Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEW ENGLAND A, ssOCIATION OF ~IRE CHIEFS.
There are three main through streets that run laterally across the devastated area.
They are fine streets to make the approach. The devastated~ area crossing them was
probably half a mile. My first thought was to follow the direct line to the box alarm-that
would be on the street which Lt. Maloney described as having been "bogged down"
by traffic. I got reports from the deput;# chief that he was having trouble getting
through streets. Trees were down. I began to notice tremendous activity as I got close
to the area. It Was beginning to be a problem--and the outstanding fear I felt during
the entire situation was that I would get tied-up in traffic and be unable *o move ai’ound.
For the first several hours, the one thing I valuedl most was to be able to move
around and by means of the radio, be the hub of over-all Coordination of the different
currents of thought; making decisions that would send companies, from one point to
another and take care of the requests coming in from so many units of the department.
I was in perfect contact with every radio-equipped car. I was in perfect contact with
my office, the fire alarm divisions and maintenance division.
Getting back to the traffic and to give you the picture, it is c!ear how radio communications
aided me in making decisions.. Being afraid of the traffic tie-up and knowing
what companies I had in the area, as previously described, I diverted from the
first approach, whihh was via the most. northerly through street. I had my eye on
the cloud of black smoke and at the time it was increasing ’so I crossed over *o the
middle road which was on the high plateau land of the area. Here I might say that as
the tornado came in from the north it first hit, we will say, the lower level (Boylston
Street) and then with an upward stroke it swept over the top plateau and then down
over the further slope where it struck the Great Brook Valley one thousand unit housing
development, with which you are familiar.
I tried to hit into the middle road--at least that was my intention--but this was
not carried out. The reports, coming in on the radio were frantically calling for
bulances and describing the fact that the fire was getting ou* of control and further,
that the streets were being plugged up--some radio-equipped fire apparatus advised
how they were hemmed in. The picture finally developed that there were many injuries
to person’s. I knew a large number of person.s lived in the housing project and
the description of the injuries, was so tragic that I changed my plan again and went
to the third through street--which would take me out to the housing project.
When I give you the time later you will see that this did not take very long, but
that was the order of my thinking and my actions up to that point. Arriving at the
housing project, *here was a scene that was really tragic. You have heard it described
in various news stories, but those descriptions won’t ever cover it. It is like black-andwhite
film as. compared with colored film.
I will try to give you a little of it to this extent, because it helped me to form
opinions so quickly. There is a broad--pretty close to 100-foot--street that passes
what is the main entrance to th eh0using project. Keep in mind that there were 1,000
apartments, and when this tornado hit, not one apartment escaped. There was not one
pane of glass which hadn’t been broken. In most apartments there was a large picture
window at one outside wall with one opposite on the other outside wall, through which
the wind swept and cleaned out everything. There were injured people in every apartment.
Can you picture 1,000 apartments emptying out their people and converging
onto just the one main entrance? That situation just naturally took them all down the
one street; they were walking up abreast, almost in parade, only so badly disorganized
and hopelessly covered with dust. Everyone was covered with gray, brownish, muddy
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