Besides welcoming the family back to Pennsylvania Street, the event highlighted the role insurance companies have played in the tornado recovery process – a point Donovan and his wife Jane made during the press conference on their new front steps.
Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray, left, greets Jane Donovan and F. Robert "Bobby" Donovan prior to the ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday for their new home on the same Pennsylvania Avenue lot as the house destroyed by the tornado exactly one year ago.SPRINGFIELD — Fred "Bobby" Donovan didn’t need a weatherman to know his house was going to be blown apart.
From his living room on Pennsylvania Avenue, the retired machinist heard something big coming – fierce swirling winds accompanied by a “a strange winding sound,” recalled Donovan, who has relied on a wheelchair since contracting multiple sclerosis a decade ago.
A minute later, the June 1 tornado was tearing at the two-story house as Donovan clung to the basement stairs.
“It kept pulling at the house, like it was trying to pull it off the foundation,” Donovan said. “And then it was gone,” he said.
A year later, Donovan cut the ribbon on a new home at a ceremony attended by Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray, state Insurance Commissioner Joseph Murphy, Mayor Domenic J. Sarno and other state and local officials.
Besides welcoming the family back to Pennsylvania Avenue, the event highlighted the role insurance companies have played in the tornado recovery process – a point Donovan and his wife Jane made during the press conference on their new front steps.
At the suggestion of their insurance agent, the Donovans opted for a single-story ranch-style home, with a handicapped-access ramp. The agent, Joseph Leahy from Leahy and Brown Insurance, also attended the event.
“Everybody came through for us; thank you for everything,’ Jane Donovan said.
A year later, Fred Donovan was still struck by the storm's almost supernatural power. Powered by winds estimated at 160-mph, the storm seemed driven by its own needs, Donovan said.
“It was like it had an intelligence ... like it was searching for water,” he said, noting that Watershops Pond was just a few hundred yards away.