Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 223

THE HARTFORD COURANT: Tut.doy, July 1 1, 1989 A5 Tornado suspected in Hamden Blast rips heart out of Bantam i i I fetrf By DEBORAH PETERSEN and JOHN WHITESIDES Courant Staff Writers i BANTAM Bob Usher stared in disbelief Monday at the mound of splintered wood and bricks that once was the Bantam Methodist Church. "This is devastating," said Usher, a Bantam firefighter. "It came up very quickly; no one knew what was happening." For Usher and hundreds of other Bantam borough residents, the powerful blast of wind, rain and lightning tore the heart out of their hamlet. The community's Methodist Church, post office and town office building were destroyed, and downed hemlocks, utility poles and electrical wires crisscrossed Route 202, the main route through town. A mound of splintered wood and 'bricks was all that remained of the church.

In front, a brick stairway led to nowhere. Residents wandered through the debris as emergency workers tried to make sense of the chaos. Some residents adjourned to the nearby Bantam Pub, where they drank and ate hors d'oeuvres by candlelight and traded stories of their close By MATTHEW KAUFFMAN Courant Staff Writer HAMDEN Most officials and residents assume it was a tornado that decimated block after block in Hamden toppling buildings, trees and power lines and leaving large parts of the town without gas, electricity or passable roads. The particular meteorological nightmare that passed through Hamden will not be known for sure until today, but the answer will be anticlimactic to the residents who stood dumbfounded in the streets, staring at the damage to their homes, businesses, cars and other property. About eight buildings were knocked down by the tremendous storm in Hamden and perhaps another 20 partially collapsed, Fire Chief John Tramontano said.

State troopers with dogs searched the rubble of buildings for occupants. "At this point in time, I hope everyone is out," Tramontano said. "Everyone seems to be accounted for. Then again, you never know." Tramontano estimated that 60 people were injured in the brief but powerful storm. One woman went into labor while being evacuated, Tramontano said; hospital officials could not provide information on her.

Most of the Hamden residents treated at New Haven hospitals suffered minor injuries. However, a 3-year-old girl from Hamden was in serious condition Monday night with neck injuries suffered when her bouse fell in on her, said Ken Warren, spokesman for the Hospital of St. Raphael in New Haven, Downed power lines and a difficult gas leak forced the evacuation of about 1,500 residents from an area along Dixwell Avenue south of the center of town. A fire official using a bullhorn warned, "This has been declared a disaster area. Any civilians will be arrested." At one intersection, a lone car was crushed under a huge tree.

The street was littered with parts of a small billboard, the broken lamp of a street light, a utility pole that was snapped in two and a maze of power lines. Nearby, a house was reduced to rubble. Another home had fallen to one side and lay slumped against a neighboring house. A woman quietly swept the broken pieces of a plate-glass window that had been blown gr-rj Rolando Otero The Hartford Courant A house on Dixwell Avenue in Hamden lies in ruins after it was hit by high winds in a storm that swept through town Monday. Despite damage, Waterbury residents thankful siding off homes and downing trees? "Behind our lot we had a beautiful wooded area," Brigitte "There's not a tree standing now." Gerald, wearing a bright Hawai-' ian shirt, carried two leather suitcases as the couple headed for shelter.

Gary Starr, a former emergency medical technician who was helping at Hamden High School, tried to drive to his home in Hamden and 1 encountered golf-ball-size hail and chain lightning. 1 "I've never seen it so dark, so windy," he said at the evacuation-shelter. "I went through Hurricane Gloria and Gloria wasn't that bad." Courant Stpff Writers Suzanne Sd-tatine and Kathryn Kranhold contributed to this report. Area ranks 6th in number of tornadoes Connecticut and western Massachusetts annually rank about sixth in the nation for the number of tornadoes a square mile. And most people living in the area probably don't even know it.

"We live in a very serious, storm-prone area of the nation," said Mel Goldstein, director of the weather center at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. "We just don't realize it." Goldstein said the area is often crossed by weather systems of warm, moist air from the southwest and cold air from the north. When the weather systems collide, violent winds and heavy rains may be produced. If the systems are strong enough, tornadolike gusts may result, Goldstein said. Monday's storm was the most violent since October 1979, when a tornado hit Granby, East and Windsor Locks causing $254 million in damages, killing three people.

By ERIN MARTIN DAN HAAR and LIZ WILLEN 11 Courant Staff Writers WATERBURY More than a hundred Concord Street residents gathered on their storm-ravaged street Monday night and prayed. "We were all grateful no one was hurt, not even an animal," said Ber-nadette Dillon, who lives at 65 Concord St. Dillon and other residents of the street of single-family two-story houses clustered in the streets, laughing and crying as they looked at dozens of toppled oak trees and yards scattered with debris. "No one said much," Dillon said. "Our oak-filled street is bare." The storm sent one tree into a dining room and another knocked out a stone wall.

Limbs protruded from front porches- and attics, crushed car roofs and damaged a house so badly the doors would not close. Residents believed their street must be the worst-hit in the city. "Everybody thinks their street is calls. Joeann Urrutia said she was standing in the kitchen of her house with her two children when the winds began to pick up. "I heard high winds and the glass in the kitchen started breaking," she said.

"When the glass stopped flying, I grabbed the kids and ran down- stairs. We were lucky to get out alive." Nearby, Terry Piorone looked distraught as she leaned on the hood of a car in front of her house, heavily damaged by the storm. But she managed a smile when she saw a rabbit peeking out from under a school bus that had been crushed by a tree1. The rabbit had been eating up her garden this summer. "That damn rabbit made it.

I don't believe it," she exclaimed. Officials estimated that about 70 houses were damaged in the borough's center. The roofs were blown off several businesses. No serious injuries were reported. "We were lucky, lucky, lucky," State Trooper Ron Filippini said.

By 8 p.m., an orange sun hung in the sky over the scene as police and firefighters cordoned off the square-mile area with yellow tape. Fire Chief James Gavell carried a computer printout of addresses as he dispatched emergency workers door-to-door in search of people needing shelter. Cots were set up at the Litchfield Firehouse, but no one had arrived there seeking shelter as of early evening. The high winds also caused damage in the Milton section, Morris, Woodbury and Bethlehem, said state police spokesman Scott O'Mara. "Bantam appears to be the area of the most-widespread devastation," he said.

About a dozen boats sat capsized on Bantam Lake as residents wearily surveyed the damage. Officials had no estimates of monetary damage or the number of people without power Monday night. Usher estimated it would take a few months to repair Monday's damage. "Bantam should look pretty decent by the end of summer, but it won't be easy," he said. Paula Bronstein The Hartford Courant The sky turned ominously black as the brief storm passed, but by 7 p.m., it was fairly light in Hamden.

But large sections of the city were without power, and as night fell, the streets were transformed into an eerie scene of bobbing flashlights. Joe Canatelli, owner of Yankee Aluminum on Hamden Park Drive, said his building and at least two others were destroyed by what he beleives was a tornado. "There's nothing left. You can't imagine it. A pile of rubble," he said.

Canatelli said a neighboring businessman barely made it out of his building before it collapsed. "The power went off, then the burglar alarm went off. He went to turn off the burglar alarm and then the door blew open," Canatelli said. "Then he walked out of it and then the building fell down." 30 feet through the air and smash In their front yard. "The sky was very black, like it was midnight," Betsy Ciarlo said.

"You knew something was wrong. All of a sudden it got very quiet, and then it hit. The next thing I knew, you could hear nothing but sirens." "The kids were standing at the window and they said, 'Look, there goes the umbrella; there goes the Ciarlo said. The family's bicycles that had been lined up along the side of the house were thrown into a tangle of wheels; some house windows blew out; and the 2 -foot letters on the sign on the face of their business Ciarlo Monumental Works Inc. were blown off.

The monuments at the Calvary Cemetary on East Main Street, next to the Ciarlo's home, were barely visible amid heaps of branches and limbs. The windows in every car about 50 in the parking lot of St. Mary's Hospital Corp. were blown out. The most severe damage occurred in the east end and Waterville area part of the Broad Brook Mill complex.

Cotter's company purchased the mill in 1986 and was renovating it into 143 apartments and offices when it caught fire in May 1986 and was destroyed. The renovation of the historic buildings was supposed to be a major economic boost for the Broad Brook area. After the fire, Cotter salvaged some of the mill buildings, and was just completing work on condominiums there, said Watts, who has been doing some commercial real estate work with Cotter. Cotter also built the Millbrook condominiums on Church Street in East Windsor, and had been planning to renovate other Main Street property into a small shopping center, Watts said. "John Cotter was a hard-working man He had a lot of irons in the fire," Watts said.

"If it is him, he's got everything in the world to live for." Courant Staff Writers Constance Neyer, Bill Keveney, William Hathaway and Gina Brisgone contributed to this story. into her business. Police and fire officials stood near cars with flashing lights or by long strips of yellow ribbon used to block the road, and talked into two-way radios. Although meteorologists said they could not confirm immediately that a tornado had hit Hamden, Tramontano had no doubt. He traced the funnel from Hamden, north to North Haven, and south cutting a swath along 12 blocks of Dixwell Avenue.

Bobby McCray of Morse Street in Hamden believes he saw a tornado that smashed his home. McCray was home with his wife and three children when it started raining hard about 5:30 p.m. "I saw something dark, smoky-looking through the window, then all of a sudden, the windows started breaking," he said. "Everything just flew around. It just took the roof right off the house." the worst," said Stephen Beaujon, an aide to Mayor Joseph J.

Santopietro. Beaujon said he could not possibly name which streets had been hardest hit. "At least 200 are impaired," he said. "We can't keep up with all the reports of downed trees, ruined yards." John Devlin, of 74 East Main was driving to work about 5 p.m. when the front wheels of his car were lifted off the ground by the wind and dropped back down.

He decided to return to his apartment, about a mile away. When he got there, he found that the roof of his building had been torn off and a nearby warehouse had collapsed. "I can't believe this," Devlin said after the storm. "I couldn't see a thing. I poked my head out the window and I still couldn't see nothing.

And now I come home and the roof is gone." About a mile away, on Frost Road, the Ciarlo family watched the storm from their home. Although they did not see funnel clouds, they saw their aluminum shed leave the ground, fly "They were wonderful neighbors," said Bridie Clairy, the housekeeper at the house next to the Cotters'. The elder Cotter had promised to bring some fish back to a neighbor after a weekend trip to the family's Essex house, said the neighbor, who asked not to be identified. He said he thought something was strange when he noticed that none of the vehicles parked in the driveway had changed position all weekend. The street where parking usually is not permitted was choked with vehicles Monday police cars, iretrucks and vans belonging to local television stations.

Cotter was president of Connecticut Building a contracting firm. He had moved his business from Park Road in West Hartford to Main Street in the Broad Brook section of East Windsor only a few weeks ago, said Robert M. Watts, former East Windsor first selectman. "John was a very generous person" who was well-liked, Watts said. "I'm just shocked." Cottefj moved the business to a building he had renovated that was Mayor John L.

Carusone, who declared a state of emergency in town, called for help from the National Guard and the state police. There were reports of minor looting in town, and Guardsmen were sent to patrol high-crime areas. Members of the guard also joined civilians in directing traffic at numerous intersections that had lost their traffic lights. Two housing complexes for the elderly along Putnam Avenue apparently were spared the worst of the storm, although they lost power and had to rely on emergency generators. But other parts of Putnam Avenue were badly damaged.

Gerald and Brigitte Violette, who live in the Putnam Townhouses condominium complex, said they believe a tornado blew through their complex, pulling of the city. Officials did not have an estimate of number of buildings damaged or cost. But news of other streets did not reach residents of Concord Street, who could not get over the damage they saw. "Everything is down. It's a mess," said a Concord Street resident who declined to be identified.

The man said a tree came down on his porch and car. He said dozens of houses on the street were severely damaged. Mary Ann Dorr said her yard was so littered with trees "you can see nothing but oak." "It's as if a giant walked into the yard and plucked them like a reed," said Dorr, who could see the tree that destroyed her neighbor's front porch at 145 Concord St. from her window. "They lost their front porch and have a tree in their attic," she said.

"We went out and it was strange to be able to see the sky," Dillon said. "After the shock of it, we just realized how fortunate we are, really. You had to think what in the world could be that strong?" ft" iMmJ Warkek from the state medical wiLborTM a Police say Hartford man killed three family members, himself li i a Continued from previous page Cotters' house a three-story red brick colonial with a slate roof and a 3ay window on the second floor probably was the most elaborately furnished on the street. enormous and so magnificently furnished," Nerman said. "It's probably the most magnificent Jiouse on the street.

It's like walking into a magazine." The family's four vehicles were Sarked in the gravel driveway a aguar, a Range Rover, a Blazer and a red pickup truck. Neighbors said Anne Cotter once had been a teacher at Morley School in West Hartford. Neighbors described her as a slender, attractive woman with a polished look, active in the arts. "She was such a refined person," Nerman said. John Cotter Jr.

was described as a handsome, tall, heavy-set man who frequently helped his neighbors. Shirley Crosswaith, who lives across the street, said that when her house was burglarized, Cotter sent workers from his company the same day to repair the v'ndow free. Other 'neighbors said also had helped -them. I examiner's'office remove a body Monday from Chouse in developer apparently killed three family h.melf.