6-2-2011 - Storm aftermath - Staff Photo By John Suchocki - Springfield Main Street businesses damaged by the tornado late Wednesday afternoon.

The Springfield Massachusetts newspaper described the tornado that hit the city on June 1 as a “Sudden, Violent Twist of Weather.” Growing up in that city, situated in the western portion of the state about one hundred miles west of Boston, I always thought tornados were destined for cities in the southern or western United States. Nor’easters, particularly in the winter, are the kind of storms we New Englanders are accustomed to experiencing.

But now the streets I used to pass through on my way to the old Classical High School, and the downtown area where I shopped for accessories to my mother’s handmade clothes, and where many of the city’s manufacturing companies were located, are devastated by wreckage to trees, roofs, and walls making Springfield eerily similar to the streets of Joplin, Missouri. These photographs graphically show the damage to city streets, homes, businesses, and nearby towns.

Sudden twists of fate, like an oncoming tornado when you least expect it, or the sudden losses of war, are the parts of our lives over which we hold little or no control. I wish it weren’t so.