http://blog.masslive.com/breakingnews/print.html?entry=/2011/10/merrick_residents_coping_with.html
By Sandra Constantine, The Republican / www.MASSLive.com
WEST SPRINGFIELD – As residents of the Merrick section mark the five-month anniversary Tuesday of the tornado that devastated their neighborhood, they are now coping with the fallout from Saturday’s snowstorm.
“We’re still trying to catch up from the tornado,” Erik N. Hudson of 580 Main St. said of the seven nights his family spent in a motel after the June 1 disaster. “That was $200 a day.”
Like many other residents of Main Street, Hudson did not lose power because of the Nor'easter. And his family is playing Good Samaritan this time around, hosting four adult friends and their three children overnight because they do not have any heat in their Springfield homes.
“We are just trying to feed everybody,” Hudson, 37, said.
As for the double whammy of a tornado then a blizzard, Hudson said, “We’re used to it I guess. You don’t have much of a choice. You gotta do what you gotta do.”
Michelle Vargas of 235 Union St. lost power off and on Sunday and still had not recovered cable, telephone or Internet service as of late Monday afternoon. What she did have following the blizzard was heat. That prompted her to host 13 friends overnight Saturday and Sunday who were not so lucky. Her apartment was wall to wall air mattresses.
“We did not expect this kind of weather. It’s early for a snowstorm,” Vargas said.
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Mark M. Murray, The Republican 10/31/11 Springfield Republican Photo by Mark M.Murray-. Motorists wait in line to get gas at the station on Wilbraham Road, a scene being played out all over Western Mass. Monday.
October snowstorm day 3: Recovery and cleanup efforts continue gallery (18 photos)
Mohammed Najeeb, long-term recovery coordinator for natural disasters at Lutheran Social Services of New England on Main Street. said his clients are having trouble emotionally coping with a blizzard on top of the tornado.
“It is getting them more frustrated. They are worried about winter coming because they think it is going to be like this all winter long,” Najeeb said of the refugees his agency has settled in the area. “We are calling them continuously. ... We are trying to calm them down. They just recovered from the tornado.”
Lutheran Social Services finds housing for refugees, resettling many of them in the working class Merrick section.
Najeeb said clients are being told that this is the first time local people have seen a blizzard like the one that hit the area Saturday.
“I’m ready to move to Florida I’m so sick of the weather,” said Ned Hubbard, who owns West Side Sign at 442 Main St. “I’m 62 years old and I’ve never seen a snowstorm do this much damage.”
Hubbard said his business was not affected by the blizzard, but he lost power at his house, which is on Poplar Street.
“This was one little bit of West Springfield that was spared,” Hubbard said of the area around his business.
Hubbard said he and his wife would probably spend Monday night sleeping at the business, where there is heat.
“Our house is very, very cold and very dark,” Hubbard said. “This is worse than the tornado. It wasn’t most of the whole town.”