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Disaster Study Number 3

Tornado in Worcester

An Exploratory Study of Individual and Community
Behavior In An Extreme Situation

ANTHONY F. C. WALLACE

Committee on Disaster Studies

National Academy of Sciences-
National Research Council

Publication 392

MEMBERS

Carlyle F. Jacobsen, Chairman
Dwighf W. Chapman, Co-chairman
Charles W. Bray
John A. Clausen
John P. Gillin
J. McV. Hunt
Irving L. Janis

C. M. Louffit (Chairman,

Sub-committee on Clearinghouse)

John H. Mathewson
Russell W. Newman
John W. Raker
John P. Spiegel

MEMBERS, ex officio
Harry Harlow
Clyde Kluckhohn
Harry L. Shapiro

STAFF

Harry B. Williams,
Technical Director

Charles E. Fritz
Luisa Fisher
Jeannette F. Rayner
Mark J. Nearman
Helen McMahon

DIVISION OF
ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Harry Harlow, Chairman
Glen Finch, Executive Secretary

COMMITTEE ON DISASTER STUDIES

The Committee on Disaster Studies is a committee
of the Division of Anthropology and Psychology,
National Academy of Sciences— National Research
Council. It was established as the result of a request
made of the Academy— Research Council by the Sur-
geons General of the Army, the Navy, and the Air
Force, that it "conduct a survey and study in the fields
of scientific research and development applicable to
problems which might result from disasters caused
by enemy action."

The function of the Committee is to aid in develop-
ing a field of scientific research on the human aspects
of disaster. The Committee maintains a clearinghouse
on disaster research, publishes a roster of scientific
personnel in the field of disaster research, and issues
periodically a Newsletter. It makes modest grants to
encourage research in disaster studies, advises with
responsible officials on problems of human behavior
in disaster, and from time to time issues reports on
the results of disaster research.

At present its activities are supported by a grant
from the Ford Foundation, and by special grants from
the National Institute of Mental Health of the Depart-
ment of Health, Education and Welfare, and from the
Federal Civil Defense Administration.

Disaster Study Number 3

Committee on Disaster Studies

Division of Anthropology and Psychology

An Exploratory Study of Individual and Community
Behavior in an Extreme Situation

TORNADO IN WORCESTER

Anthony F. C. Wallace
University of Pennsylvania

Publication 392

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES -NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL

Washington, D. C.
1956

From the collection of the

Prelinger

v Jjibrary
p

San Francisco, California
2007

Library of Congress Catalog
Card No. 56-60015

FOREWORD

This is the third in a series of disaster study reports to be pub-
lished by the Committee on Disaster Studies. This series is designed
to make the findings of disaster research more accessible to research
workers and to agencies and officials concerned with disaster problems.
It includes studies which have been completed for some time but which
have not been previously published, as well as recently completed
studies. The study reported herein was supported by the Committee
under Contract Number DA-49-007-MD-256 between the Department of
the Army and the National Academy of Sciences -National Research
Council.

A devastating and unprecedented tornado struck Worcester, Mass-
achusetts, and several nearby towns on June 9, 1953. The Committee
conducted and sponsored several limited investigations of different
aspects of the disaster. Other limited studies were also made. (Dr.
Wallace lists these various studies in this report. )

The Committee turned all the data it had been able to collect over
to Dr. Wallace and asked him to prepare an integrated analysis of the
Worcester tornado disaster. His analysis is reported herein. His
development and systematic application of the concepts of time phases
and spatial zones in disaster, and his formulation of explanatory hy-
potheses -- the disaster syndrome and the counter -disaster syndrome,
the length of the isolation period, and the cornucopia theory of supply
-- are proving useful both in the extension of theory concerning human
behavior in disaster and in sharpening up problems for rewarding re-
search.

The issuance of this report does not necessarily indicate concur-
rence of every member of the Committee on Disaster Studies in every
statement made in the report, nor does publication imply Department
of Defense indorsement of factual accuracy or opinion.

Carlyle F. Jacobsen

Chairman

Committee on Disaster Studies

iii

PREFACE

The Committee on Disaster Studies of the National Research
Council, during the spring and summer of 1953, undertook to carry on
a series of exploratory field studies of disaster. Some of these studies
were conducted by members of the Committee staff, some by persons
retained as consultants, some by organizations under contract. These
studies involved many aspects of disaster: evacuation experiences,
communications, rumor, panic, rescue and rehabilitation, etc.

Following the tornado which struck Worcester, Massachusetts,
on June 9, 1953, several organizations sent personnel to study various
phases of the disaster, particularly what happened during the rescue
and rehabilitation period. The Committee itself sponsored or facili-
tated: a study of communications in Worcester and in Flint, Michigan
(struck by another tornado the day before) by Irving Rosow, a graduate
student at the Russian Research Center at Harvard; a study of the role
of the Catholic Church, in Worcester and Flint, by a team from the
Catholic University of America, including Carroll Brodsky, John
Muldoon, and Regina Flannery Herzfeld; two studies of medical care
following the disaster, one by the Massachusetts General Hospital, and
the other by Jeannette Rayner of the Committee's staff; a study of the
psychological and physiological effects of the stress of their tornado
experience on a group of previously studied Worcester firemen and
industrial employees; and a brief "horseback survey" by the writer
aimed at identifying spatial and emotional dimensions of the disaster
which would repay systematic analysis later in this or an analogous
situation. Other studies made by a variety of persons and organizations
are listed in the bibliography of this report.

These studies, and other sources of data, have been collated in
the preparation of this report, which is an attempt to analyze the
Worcester tornado disaster as an event, according to the categories of
the theoretical model developed in the introduction. It is avowedly
exploratory, as the sub-title indicates, in two senses: the conceptual
formulations (the time -space model, the disaster syndrome, the counter -
disaster syndrome, the isolation period, and the cornucopia theory)
are intended to stimulate thought rather than to make converts to a
system, and accordingly are not presented as a formal body of theory
nor as a set of hypotheses verified adequately by the available Worcester
materials; and the empirical data, almost entirely compiled by other
observers with a variety of interests, are evidently uneven in quality,
quantity, in representativeness, and in precision of reference to the
matters I have chosen to emphasize. Furthermore, such generaliza-
tions as I have made or implied about disasters as types of event

obviously will require the assembling of much comparative materials,
both for general validation and for necessary qualification. With these
caveats in mind, it is hoped that both the empirical data on the Worces-
ter case, and the theoretical formulations which have been worked out
to organize these data, will be of some use to scholars and adminis-
trators interested in disaster studies. The interpretations and opinions
expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
Committee on Disaster Studies.

I should like to make special acknowledgment to several persons
and organizations who have helped me greatly in preparing the Worcester
report: Harry B. Williams, Technical Director of the Committee on
Disaster Studies; W. N. Fenton, until recently the Secretary of the
Division of Anthropology and Psychology of the National Research
Council; Jeannette Rayner, staff associate of the Committee on Disaster
Studies, with whom I talked over at length the disaster syndrome formu-
lation; R. L. Polk & Co. , of Boston, who have kindly permitted repro-
ductions of the map of Worcester from their 1953 city directory; and the
Worcester Telegram and Gazette and radio station WTAG, who made
available tape recordings of their tornado broadcasts, and plates of all
photographs used in this report.

Anthony F. C. Wallace
University of Pennsylvania

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Introduction: A Time -Space Model of Disaster as

a Type of Behavioral Event 1

1. Steady State: The City Before Impact 17

2. Warning: The City Learns of Impending Impact .... 31

3. Impact: The Tornado Strikes 41

4. Isolation: The Impact Area Goes it Alone 55

5. Rescue: Extrication, First Aid, Reassurance,

and Evacuation 73

6. Rehabilitation: The Attempt to Restore the

Steady State 87

7. Irreversible Change: The City Achieves a New

Equilibrium 103

8. Special Topics: The Disaster Syndrome, the

Counter -Disaster Syndrome, the Length of the

Isolation Period, the Cornucopia Theory 109

Bibliography 161

List of Interviews and Field Notes , 165

vii

MAPS

1. The City of Worcester

2. Ecological Zones in Worcester

3. Distribution of Security Agencies

4. The Path of the Tornado

5. Disaster Space at I-Time (5:08 - 5:20 PM)

6. Neighborhoods in Impact Area

7. Disaster Space at 5:30 PM

8. Disaster Space at 6:00 PM

9. Disaster Space at 8:00 PM

PLATES

1. The Tornado Cloud at Two Miles Distance

2. Devastation at Assumption College

3. Devastation in St. Nicholas Development Area

4. Devastation in Great Brook Valley and Curtis Apartments

5. Rescue and First Aid in Great Brook Valley

6. Evacuation from Great Brook Valley

7. Evacuation from Burncoat Street Area

8. Evacuation from Great Brook Valley

9. The Disaster Syndrome: Silence and Immobility

10. The Disaster Syndrome: The "Dazed" Reaction

11. The Disaster Syndrome: Body Contact

12. The Disaster Syndrome: Passivity

13. The Disaster Syndrome: The "Staring" Reaction

INTRODUCTION: A TIME-SPACE MODEL OF DISASTER
AS A TYPE OF BEHAVIORAL EVENT

In my memorandum on the Worcester survey, and further in a
memorandum on the literature of disasters, I suggested the desirability
of approaching the study of disasters with the expectation that a general
model of disaster as a type of event could be formulated, with char-
acteristic dimensions in space and time along which various phenomena
might be plotted, and that disasters could by systematically compared
and analyzed with respect to variation along these dimensions. At the
same time, I suggested the possibility of using the relatively well-
described Worcester event as a proper place to apply the early formu-
lations of the model, and, by recurrent attention to the "fit" or lack of
it between theory and fact, to produce both an improved theoretical
model and a more coherent picture of the Worcester tornado disaster
as a total event.

In earlier publications, Powell, Rayner, and Finesinger had
developed, from their empirical studies of several disasters of differ-
ent types, a model of the time dimension in disasters. Disaster time
was in this model divided into seven stages; given disasters varied of
course in the length, extent of overlap, repetition, and behavioral con-
tent of each stage, but these variations could be described in terms of
the stages themselves. The stages were distinguished by the pre-
dominant disaster -related behavior characteristic of persons involved
in the disaster; the length in absolute time was variable.

Time Stages in Disaster

Stage
O. Pre-disaster conditions

1 . Warning

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2. Threat

3. Impact

4. Inventory

5. Rescue

6. Remedy

7. Recovery

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Function

Determining, to some degree,
the effect of, and response
to, impact

Precautionary activity
Survival action
"Holding on"

Diagnosis of situation and
decision on action

Spontaneous, local, unorgan-
ized extrication and first
aid; some preventive meas-
ures

Organized and professional re-
lief, medical care, preventive
and security measures

Individual rehabilitation and
readjustment; community re-
storation of property and
organization; preventive
measures against recurrence.

e'-st sift

• '

^After Powell, Rayner, and Fine singer, 1953. /

MAP 1: The City of Worcester

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This approach seemed to be so fruitful, in providing a vocabulary
and a framework for the analysis of relationships, that it appeared to
be desirable to formulate a similar schema for disaster-space. On the
basis of early impressions in Worcester, therefore, I formulated a
space model consisting of concentric circles, each circle being dis-
tinguished for its most marked disaster -related function:

It was hypothesized that the population and resources of each area play
systematically different roles in relation to disaster, and that these
differences in behavior are related not only to the pre-existing organi-
zation of the ground, but to the spatial organization imposed by the
impact itself.

Evidently the circularity of this schema is not intended as a literal
representation of physical layout in disaster, since the areas can vary

greatly in shape from one disaster to another, and in any one disaster,
the areas can vary greatly in width from place to place. The impact
area - the area within which physical destruction occurs - is divided
into an area of "total impact" and an area of "fringe impact. " "Total
impact" does not mean total destruction but rather the working of the
impact agent with the full severity characteristic of it in this disaster.
"Fringe impact" is minimal in comparison with the "total impact" and
usually involves minor damage and few or no serious injuries. Cri-
teria for drawing the imaginary boundary between these two sub-areas
will vary with the type and destructiveness of the impact agent, how-
ever: much of the fringe area of a hydrogen explosion might show
damage more serious than the total impact area of, let us say, a flood;
and often the two areas will shade off into one another on a rather
smooth gradient, so that the drawing of a line becomes rather arbitrary.
Even in such cases, however, I suspect that the concept of "total" and
"fringe" is utilized by victims and rescue workers, even though the
drawing of a line would be difficult. In the case of Worcester, because

of the nature of the tornado as impact agent, the fringe area was sharply

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and obviously demarcated from the area of total impact: one side of a

street, for instance, might show only stripped shingles and leafy debris;
on the other side, whole houses would be reduced to rubble.

Filter area is the label attached to that region, broader or nar-
rower, immediately adjacent to the impact area, through which both

traffic and information must pass to and from the filter area. Because
it is in a sense the narrow end of the communication funnel, and because
there are likely to be traffic and communication jams in it at points of
entry to (or exit from) the impact area, it tends to act as a filter,
screening out certain kinds of traffic and information. The filter area
is also likely to supply certain services, in the way of communications,
rescue, first aid, and comfort, to victims in the impact area before
organized community and regional aid arrive.

The areas of organized community and regional aid are only
selectively affected by the impact, and their services in large part are
carried out by various counter-measure agencies, such as police and
fire departments, hospitals, relief agencies, etc. A clear line of de-
marcation between community and regional aid areas is easy to find
in the case of urban areas, because the city itself can be defined as
the community; but the boundaries of the region are vague, ramifying
out through county, state, and major geographical area. Where the
national government actively intervenes with more than pre-established
administrative facilitation of the work of the regional or community
offices of national agencies (for instance, by assembling military per-
sonnel from widely scattered points rather than by authorizing through
standard operating instructions the participation of local forces), one
might speak of an "organized national aid" area co -extensive with the
national territory. Distinctions between "regional" and "national" are

apt to become distinctions between levels of administrative authority
rather than valid geographical distinctions, however, because any
major disaster, at least in an industrialized society, is likely to in-
volve communications, transport, and industry in all parts of the
country.

In the present study, the attempt has been made to bring these
two schemas together and to forge a systematic analytical tool by
which data may be classified in time and space. No major modifica-
tions have been made in the original time -schema of Powell, Rayner,
and Finesinger. In the chapter -by -chapter presentation of the Wor-
cester material I found it to be more convenient to treat the warning
and threat periods as indistinguishable, because of the slightness of
the warning itself. The post-impact periods of Powell, Rayner, and
Finesinger (inventory, rescue, remedy, and recovery) have been some-
what consolidated and re -named, chiefly to relate the time zones to
space zones. Thus my "isolation" period is equivalent to Powell's
"inventory" and "rescue" periods; my "rescue" period is his "remedy"
period; and my "rehabilitation" period is his "recovery" period. I
have added a final period, "irreversible change, " to take account of the
fact that recovery or rehabilitation is never complete, and that the
original equilibrium state before the disaster is not fully restored; a
slightly different equilibrium is attained.

The essential elements of the conceptual model of that type of
disaster in which a lethal impact is relatively sudden, brief, and sharply
defined in area, is as follows:

1. STEADY STATE

This is the system of regular energy-distribution (action) obtain-
ing in all of the ultimately affected areas at the moment just preceding
the warning period. The system will probably be in equilibrium, or
nearly so, at the time of any given disaster. By equilibrium I mean
that energy discharges are of a repetitive and predictable nature, in
response to chronic stresses; furthermore, such stresses are eliciting
effective conventional responses. In other words, the cultural system,
and the personalities of the population, are operating sufficiently
smoothly to obtain stress reductions for the population, such that the
total quantity of stress in the area at large is not systematically increas-
ing or decreasing (although there will be random variation).

Elements in this system of energy-distribution are: terrain,
topography, climate; the culture of the population involved (including
their security agencies designed to protect them from disaster); certain
non-cultural characteristics of this population, including the distribu-
tion of various demographic factors, and the distribution of personality
types ("national character"). It should be noted, however, that many
of the characteristics of the system are cyclical, so that at any given
moment the actual distribution of elements may be different from that
at another (for example, the alternation of night and day, the summer
migration from the city to vacation spots in the hinterlands). Further-
more, there is a sort of "random incidence" of stresses and responses
thereto, such as births, deaths, business openings, the making and
breaking of friendships, the development of gradual trends in the system
itself, and so on, which may mean that the momentary situation may be
very different at successive times within the same steady state.

Thus both the total system and the momentary situation at the
moment of warning, threat, or impact are important determinants of
what happens as the disaster proceeds. To be a disaster, the impact
must upset the total system; but the degree and .nature of upset which
a given impact produces depends on the momentary situation of that
system.

2. WARNING

This is the presentation of generalized cues to the energy-dis-
tribution system. This may occur over a long period of time. These
cues may be meaningful or not, depending on previous learning, the
state of perceptive -cognitive apparatus, and the nature of the communi-
cation network within the energy-distribution system. The cues them-
selves may be susceptible of several interpretations; they tend to be
ambiguous. The cues may be widely presented to many units of the
system or to a few. There may or may not be protective action taken
as a result of the cues.

Warning, as distinguished from threat, does not specify certainty
of impact at any particular place at any particular time, but rather a
probability greater than normal within the system that such an impact
will affect a particular place within a range of time: in other words,
the cue - if correctly read - means, "such and such a general kind of
impact, severity not fully predictable, may hit within a given span of
time."

As a corollary of the above, during the warning period there is
no differentiation of disaster space into the five functional areas.

3. THREAT

The threat period also involves the presentation of cues to the
disaster region. Threat, however, involves cues which, to many per-
sons at least, are not ambiguous. The period of threat is usually short,
being followed either by impact or by awareness of the danger having
passed. Threat involves the presentation of a cue which is unmistak-
able, and requires the operational assumption of certainty of impact,
even though hope of escape may persist. An initial differentiation of
the disaster region begins, into a "threat area" (areas 1, 2, and 3 in
my diagram) and a "continuation of warning" area (4 and parts of 5).
Many persons in the threat area know what it is, know approximately
when it will be, and assume that it will hit them. Consequently, some
emergency survival action (flight, retreat to cellars, etc.) is usually
taken in the threat period.

The threat cues, however, like warning cues, may not reach all
persons, and may not be interpreted as threats if they do reach a given
point. What is a threat of immediate impact to one person, may be a
casually-received warning to a second, and may not be recognized as
either a threat or a warning by a third.

4. IMPACT

The impact period is the time during which physical destruction
is being accomplished by the impact agent. The destruction accom-
plished during the operation of this agent (whether it be tornado, flood
water, hydrogen explosion, or whatever) is called the primary impact.
The primary impact is only that damage inflicted during the action of
the agent; the consequences of this primary impact are occasionally
irreversible, unchangeable and final, but usually primary impact is
followed by a secondary impact which is susceptible to manipulation.
Secondary impact properly pertains to the following period, but for
clarity of exposition will be discussed here. Let us take an example.
The driving of a piece of glass into a man's arm, severing an artery,
during the thirty seconds of the tornado's passage over an area, is
primary impact. At the close of the brief impact period (i. e. , when
the tornado is past) the man is left with a cut arm, blood spurting out
of it. The bleeding which follows, and which may, if unchecked, cost
the man his life, is secondary impact. The distinction is arbitrary,
in this instance, from the standpoint of the traumatic process, but is
made in order to clarify the time analysis. What happens of a destruc-
tive nature during the operation of the disaster -agent is primary im-
pact; destruction which follows in time is secondary impact.

The impact period differentiates the "threat area, " mentioned in
the preceding section, into three other areas. The impact area itself
is divided into two parts, the areas of "total impact" (where death and
serious injury and property damage occur) and of "fringe impact"
(where only minor injury and property damage occur). Theoretically,
depending on the characteristics of the disaster agent, several sub-
areas could be defined, distinguished by nature and severity of impact.
The filter area, just outside the impact area, is also partially defined
during impact: some of its population become aware that they are "near-

5. ISOLATION

During the isolation period, the impact area is "isolated" in the
sense that personnel and equipment from areas 3, 4, and 5 have not
come in to perform rescue, first aid, reassurance, and evacuation
functions. Strictly speaking, the length of the isolation period will
vary according to proximity to the filter area and to roads, and accord-
ing to other chance factors, so that some points will not receive aid
for perhaps half an hour, while some will be swarming with helpful
neighbors in the filter area, ambulances, and fire apparatus within a

minute. "The isolation period" therefore is an abstraction from the sum
total of all the isolation times of all points in the impact area. When
one says "the isolation period" lasted for such and such a length of
time, one is expressing one1 s estimate as to some measure of central
tendency of the distribution of all isolation periods within the impact
area or a part of it.

The isolation period is the time during which secondary impact
achieves its chief ravages. Secondary impact includes all those destruc-
tive and deteriorative processes which have been unleashed by the pri-
mary impact: in regard to trauma to individuals, bleeding, infections,
interruption of normal breathing, physiological shock, brain injuries,
etc. , etc. ; it also includes such phenomena as exposure to inclement
weather, various emotional stresses, and possible (if the isolation
period is prolonged) deprivation of food, water, and sleep. Secondary
impact also includes such things as the hazards of live wires; fires and
conflagrations; leakage of poisonous or explosive gases; spread of
epidemic disease as a result of inadequate sanitation, food, enforced
crowding, etc. Many of the more critical and dangerous secondary
impacts, however, are being reduced by the impact-area population
during the isolation period, and the arrival of organized aid from the
community and region sharply reduces secondary impact. A secondary
impact may, of course, if it gets out of control (as in a firestorm) be-
come a new primary impact agent, or can be regarded as a continuation
of primary impact.

As is indicated in Powell, Rayner, and Finesinger's functional
analysis of disaster time, the impact area population has two tasks
during the isolation period: inventory and "rescue" (which term covers
not only rescue per se, but a variety of counter-measures designed to
terminate or reduce secondary impact). The length of time taken in
inventory is probably highly variable from person to person, and as
will be indicated later on, the taking of inventory (with the attainment
of such perceptual and cognitive reorientation that a decision on action
is possible), is not always completed by the time aid arrives from the
outside, so that some individuals are found in a more or less "dazed"
condition, while others are relatively well -oriented and effective in
action.

While the impact areas are "going it alone" during the isolation
period, the community and the region are in process of learning that a
disaster has happened, of making inventory and reconnaisance of the
extent and nature of primary (and to some extent secondary) impact,
and of mobilizing and dispatching the security forces within reach of

the available communications network. The filter area further differ-
entiates from the regional and community aid areas, being the only
area which has reasonably adequate awareness of what has happened,
partly as a result of having seen and heard what happened, and partly
because into it the first evacuees are passing, and in it traffic jams
are developing as vehicles pile up at the edge of the impact area.
Notification and mobilization in the community and region are selective
during this period: security agencies and personnel connected with the
communications system know what has happened and are mobilizing,
but most other persons and organizations know very little.

6. RESCUE

The rescue period, at any point, begins when aid arrives from
areas 3, 4, and 5. During this rescue period, a combination of three
groups of personnel - impact area survivors, unorganized spontaneous
volunteers chiefly from the filter area, and organized security units -
work to combat secondary impact within the impact area. (In some
parts of the impact area, filter area volunteers arrive before the or-
ganized security units; in other parts, organized security units are the
first to arrive. ) Particularly important are the roles of the police and
fire departments, or other security forces (such as military units) who
are on a 24-hour operational basis. The chief functions to be performed
are extrication, first aid, evacuation, emergency hospital medical care,
and termination of such secondary impacts as fire and "hot" wires.

During the rescue period the five functional areas reach maturity
in the differentiation of their separate roles with respect to the disaster.
There is a decreasing frequency and degree of personal emotional in-
volvement with the disaster in the populations of areas 3, 4, and 5,
respectively, and an increasing tendency for involvement to be highly
selective and aimed at organizations rather than populations.

7. REHABILITATION

When secondary impact has been reduced to a minimal point - in
other words, when equilibrium has been temporarily re-established,
even if on a level the society defines as undesirable - effort will be
made to bring the system back to the original state. This involves ex-
tensive welfare and reconstruction activities; this is the longest period,
the most expensive period, and the one which involves the greatest
number of organized aid-personnel. The organizations responsible
for the rescue operations tend (with the exception of hospitals and

medical personnel generally) to reduce their involvement, and new
organizations - the Red Cross, government relief agencies, and insur-
ance companies - to take over responsibility.

The rehabilitation period in a sense may be said to last indefin-
itely, but for simplicity in analysis it is preferable to set a time limit -
let us say, arbitrarily, one year - and to consider whatever is not yet
rehabilitated by that time to have become, in its changed condition, a
part of the new "steady state" or equilibrium system.

The lines separating the various areas of disaster space begin to
blur during this period, and toward the end of it virtually disappear as
whatever residual changes produced by the disaster become a part of a
new system in which functional relationships (e. g. , financial, medical,
repair, etc. ) depend less and less on location with respect to the im-
pact area.

8. IRREVERSIBLE CHANGE

As has been indicated, eventually (let us say, a year later) a new
steady state will have been established somewhere between the situation
at the end of secondary impact and the pre -disaster equilibrium system,
toward the re -establishment of which rehabilitation functions were
aimed. The five areas are no longer functional; they exist as memories.

It should be made clear that "irreversible change" means a
change in the system, not merely a change in the units of which the
system is composed. People may die, lose their money, etc. , and
not affect the system, if others replace them; but if a significant
change in the population pyramid, or in the occupational structure, or
in the standard of living, or in the organization of an agency like the
Fire Department is left, the system has changed irreversibly.

In addition to presenting the story of the Worcester tornado along
the lines of analysis outlined above, several particular topics will be
discussed: the disaster syndrome (a name for a complex of evolving
attitudes and overt behavior, one of whose manifestations is the fre-
quently-referred- to "apathy" of survivors from areas 1 and 2); the
counter-disaster syndrome, displayed by persons in areas 3 and 4

(rarely from 5) who feel responsible for mitigating the effects of the
disaster (characterized by over -conscientiousness and competitive-
ness in the rescue and early rehabilitation stages); the importance of
the length of the isolation period; and the "cornucopia theory" of
disaster relief and civil defense.

After going through a considerable amount of material on the
Worcester tornado, I am left with rather a humble feeling. I have been
forced to consider and evaluate as best I can, in terms of my own the-
oretical approach, the actions and standard operating procedures of
professional disaster workers and organizations; and I am acutely aware
that I have probably over-simplified and at times possibly mis -inter-
preted situations and procedures. I have attempted to keep constantly
in mind that research into human behavior in extreme situations is in
an exploratory state and that it is important to develop a language, a
body of concepts, and a theoretical structure to which problems can be
defined, and data selected and analyzed. But as must be true of intro-
ductory research in any new field, the researcher is apt to be some-
what naive in his approach to some of the empirical materials. The
cardinal example of naivety in this study is the failure by myself -
and to a greater or lesser degree by other investigators - to recognize
the primary role played by the police and fire departments. Although
a few firemen were interviewed by Powell, they were selected because
they had participated in an earlier study of physiological responses to

frustration, and were not interviewed primarily as informants on the
events of the isolation and rescue periods. Not one interview with a
policeman have I seen, although I believe Rosow interviewed some
police officials concerning communications. Administrative officials
of the police and fire departments similarly were virtually ignored.
Even the press tended to overlook the regular city security agencies
(police, fire, and public works) in favor of Civil Defense, the Red
Cross, and the National Guard (who were much later on the scene).
If I were doing this study over again, I would concentrate on police,
fire, and public works department personnel first and most intensively
for the isolation and rescue periods, and I would recommend that in
other, similar studies, these personnel be very quickly and thoroughly
interviewed. I would also tend to be extremely cautious in accepting
criticism of these and other standard agencies, because of the tendency
for the excited and conscientious volunteer auxiliary to discover faults
in the procedures of the more phlegmatic professionals.

In future empirical studies, it would be desirable to interview a
combination of expert informants and representative informants chosen
according to an appropriate sampling design and by the use of an inter-
view guide defined in advance for relevance to matters of theoretical
importance. Many of the basic phenomena of disaster behavior have
been isolated and defined, and a conceptual structure exists for their

classification and analysis. It would be desirable now to learn the
distribution and dynamics of these phenomena - such as the disaster
and counter -disaster syndromes - by systematic and meticulous study.

I: STEADY STATE

THE CITY BEFORE IMPACT

1 . General Characteristics

Worcester is the second largest city in Massachusetts, being ex-
ceeded in size and importance in the state only by Boston. It lies on the
west bank of Lake Quinsigamond about forty miles west of Boston, with
which it is connected by a super -highway. Worcester calls itself "The
Heart of the Commonwealth. " It is a community which, in the course
of the past two hundred and fifty years, has slowly developed a rather
high level of civic responsibility and morale, of flexibility in meeting
new situations, and of identification with a cosmopolitan tradition while
at the same time maintaining something of a "small-town" atmosphere.
This high level of morale is, I believe, most important to keep in mind
in evaluating what happened on June 9, 1953.

It is, of course, difficult to define and measure objectively such
phenomena as the "morale," "cosmopolitanism," etc. , of a city.
Nevertheless, it has been my distinct impression, both in the course

of two brief visits to Worcester (after the tornado) and from my read-

<*
ing, that Worcester is a city of relatively high urban morale, and that

this may well have had a great deal to do with the surprising effective-
ness of spontaneous, unplanned, and uncoordinated rescue and relief
operations, both by individuals and by official agencies. The ratio of

deaths to number of dwellings destroyed was noticeably lower in Wor-
cester than in Flint, Michigan, and a difference in local morale may
have had something to do with it.

The city lies in the hilly, lake-studded country of central Massa-
chusetts. Within the city itself there are over a dozen small lakes,
reservoirs, and "ponds, " some of them associated with parks; the
many steep hills scattered through the town rise to heights of up to 400
feet above the lowest parts of the town. The hills and the little lakes,
and the antiquity and topsy-growth of the town itself, have resulted in
a street layout that is extremely irregular and arbitrary; while indi-
vidual subdivisions and development areas have a gridiron or other
through-street plan, and there are several arterial streets and high-
ways, there is a very high frequency of dead end streets, T and Y forks,
and unexpected changes in street names which made movement difficult
for me as a stranger and must inevitably tend to constrict traffic flow
even for local residents. A well-informed local resident, in fact, told
me that the "main civic problem" was "traffic, " the difficulties arising
from the rarity of through streets, and that a hill on the edge of Main
Street threw too great a burden even on that major artery. The
strangulation of through traffic may be in part responsible for the ten-

.-..<>' 5 ,;„ • ..; bf,ii •

dency for subdivisions and developments to retain a local name and
identity: being functionally relatively isolated, they do not become so

Kranich, conversation, 19 June 1953.

lo
c r

•*" ' industry and

•"• lass" hou

. '

,, i / . ' . , ^— t . , r— -, r— 33 , ,— , , 'T-

quickly merged into a larger gridiron- whole. Thus, areas of a few
squares will retain a definite name in the city's terminology: e.g. ,
"New Worcester," "Indian Hill, " "Fairmount, " "Greendale, " "Union
Hill. " One might speculate that in consequence there may be somewhat
less of the phenomenon of urban anonymity in Worcester than in some
other cities; people are not merely residents of "Worcester," or of
"South Worcester, " but of little communities each with its own name
and identity.

The general ecology of the city is illustrated in Map #2. As can
be seen from the map, in spite of the peculiarities of the street pattern,
the city can be divided into roughly concentric zones:

(1) "Downtown," including the City Common, the City Hall, the Post
Office with federal agency offices, newspaper and radio offices and
studios, some of the "better" shops and department stores, amuse-
ments, churches, Municipal Auditorium (where Civil Defense Head-
quarters were located), and various business offices and head-
quarters;

(2) A small slum area on the edges of "downtown;"

(3) A ring of working -peoples' homes, among which are scattered a
variety of public and private institutions: Union Station, hospitals,
colleges, athletic fields, etc. ;

(4) the "best residential district, " featuring expensive homes, large
lots, privacy, lack of through traffic, and closeness to the city
center;

(5) industrial sites, located on the major transport arteries;

(6) relatively new, middle class housing developments and public
housing projects, located in fairly open country.

Surrounding Worcester city are a number of more or less suburban
towns in Worcester County which regard Worcester as a commercial
and administrative center; Worcester thus "serves" a population of
perhaps 600, 000.

The population of Worcester in 1950 was 203, 486; in 1940 it was
193, 694. Eighteen per cent of this population was foreign born. The
national origins of the foreign and native born, taken together, are:
English (the original source, of course, in 1713 when the first perman-
ent settlement was made); Irish; Swedish (with a few Norwegian and
Finnish); and French Canadian. There is also a small group of
Armenian, Albanian, and Syrian origin, to some extent localized,
according to report, in and near the slum area south of "downtown, "
and there is said to be a "Jewish section" in the northeast, part of
which lies in the "best" residential district. There are few Negroes
and a few Polish and Italian immigrants. It was impossible to obtain
information on problems of inter -group relations in the city, but I
heard one Protestant informant express fears that the Catholic church
organization might attempt to use the disaster as an opportunity for
advertising itself (since the priests wear a "uniform, " it was feared

that their service would be more visible than those of the Protestant
clergy). Possibly the fact that many of the Catholic church organiza-
tions in Worcester minister to French-speaking immigrants from French
Canada and consequently use French in at least one church and at
Assumption College, has tended to maintain their separateness. But
I saw no great evidence that ethnic or religious differences were re-
flected in much hostile social discrimination in Worcester, The city
council, for instance, consists of Messrs. Holmstrom, Sweeney,
Duffy, Katz, Marshall, O'Brien, Rousseau, Soulliere, and Wells.

Worcester's industrial development began in the first decade of
the 19th century, when local manufacturers (with a local population of
3900) produced clocks, textiles and textile products, paper and wood
products, machinery for the textile works, etc. Since that time Wor-
cester has continued to have a diversified industrial base, which at the
present time includes some 700 manufacturing establishments employ-
ing over 50, 000 persons in such industries as steel and wire (e. g. ,
American Steel and Wire, a division of United States Steel, in South
Worcester); abrasive products (e.g., Norton Company, in north Wor-
cester); iron, steel, and special metals products; machine tools (e.g.,
Reed-Prentice, south-western Worcester); leather (e.g., Graton and
Knight, eastern Worcester); and so on. The bulk of the manufacturing
and processing is in the southern half of the city but a finger of industry

2" Field notes, AFCW, 15-19 June 1953; Polk, 1953, 9.

runs up West Boylston St. , one of the arterial roads, in northern Wor-
cester. Commercial establishments employ about 30, 000. The city
was hit hard by the collapse of the textile and shoe industry in New
England after World War II. Worcester machine tool companies sup-
plying the shoe-and-textile trade had to cut down, and about 1949 there
was widespread unemployment. A forward-looking Chamber of Com-
merce, however, has been making attempts to diversify industry even
more and to reduce a tendency to dependence on machine tools. Proba-
bly also in response to the economic troubles of Worcester, and under
the leadership of the city's businessmen, a reform administration came
into power about 1949. It would seem that the city's industrial leader-
ship has been planning and carrying through a vigorous program of
action in response to the severe threat to the economy of New England's
cities. The business of the building trades in Worcester (there has
been a good deal of residential construction) and the fact that there has
even been some industrial expansion recently, are evidences of the
morale I spoke of before. Thus, for instance, the Norton Company
(owned by local families) had just completed an addition to their plant
in June, 1953; the electric company had also recently expanded; the
Housing Authority had just put up a new housing project; and extensive
redevelopment and traffic reorganization of the downtown area is
planned. It would seem, in other words, that Worcester had, by June,
1953, begun to emerge from the threat of economic disaster. To some

extent also this had been accomplished without disruption of the pattern

of ownership of industry by local families, even though a subsidiary of

3
U. S. Steel (American Steel and Wire) had moved in.

Although intra-city traffic is poorly organized, as I have indicated,
transportation to other places is well provided. There are three rail-
roads; a super-highway links Worcester to Boston; U. S. 20 passes a
few miles south of the town, and connects at Hartford with the Wilbur
Cross and Merritt parkways to New York City; three airlines use Wor-
cester Municipal Airport, including Northeast and TWA; and the city
is the center of a web of smaller roads and highways with attendant
opportunities for bus and truck service.

The city is something of an intellectual center. It is the seat of
Clark University, which has the distinction of being one of the pioneer
graduate schools in the country, having among other things given Franz
Boas, the virtual founder of American anthropology, his first academic
position, and having invited Sigmund Freud to deliver here his first
American lectures. There are also a Polytechnic Institute and a State
Teachers' College, and three Catholic colleges (Holy Cross, Assump-
tion, and Anna Maria). The American Antiquarian Society is located
in Worcester, and contains over half a million titles relating to
American history. There is a public library containing 485, 291
volumes. There is an Art Museum with its own school administered
in collaboration with Clark University.

3. Field notes, 15-19 June, 1953; Polk, 1953.

Politically, Worcester is both a municipality in itself and the seat
of Worcester County. The city government is now organized under a
"Plan E Charter, " and accordingly there is a City Manager, a Mayor
with nominal salary (in 1953, this was Andrew B. Holmstrom, vice-
president and general manager of the abrasives division of the Norton
Company), and a City Council. The town is approximately half Demo-
crat and half Republican in political party affiliation; the charter plan
is intended to provide "non-party" government by insuring proportional
representation. I am not informed on the ins-and-outs of the political
situation in the town, but had the definite impression that some of the
noisy wrangling in city hall which was much publicized after the tornado
was an outgrowth of unresolved political conflicts, probably dating from
the re -alignment of power four years earlier.

2. Counter -Measure Agencies

Agencies and organizations, part or all of whose mission is to
prevent, mitigate, or relieve physical disaster are to be found in any
city. In Worcester itself on July 9th they included: the police depart-
ment; the fire department; Civil Defense; the local Red Cross chapter;
the hospitals and medical personnel generally; City Welfare depart-
ment; various charitable agencies, including the Salvation Army and
various church organizations. Available to Worcester according to
existing arrangement or custom, for use in case of need, were State

Police; regional and State Civil Defense; the National Red Cross;
National Guard units; and a vast and intricate network of private insur-
ance on dwellings and business properties, and of State and Federal
funds and facilities under a multitude of bureaus, which could, depend-
ing on circumstances, powerfully mitigate the economic effects of
disaster. The public utilities organizations (electric power and light,
gas, and telephone), while not essentially counter-measure agencies,
were disaster -conscious and prepared for counter -disaster action.

The state of readiness for a disaster with a single, brief, and
unexpected impact of the explicitly counter-measure organizations and
facilities was extremely varied. The police and fire departments were
(as in all large municipalities) operating on a twenty-four-hour basis,
and were manned not by volunteer or part-time help but by profession-
als, trained for the job and paid salaries by the city. The police de-
partment had under its control almost all of the ambulances in the city;
the major hospitals did not control the dispatching of ambulances. Per-
sonnel of both fire and police departments were trained to act as dis-
ciplined teams; were accustomed to dealing with the consequences of
physical violence; and thus were equipped to perform such auxiliary
tasks as rescue, first aid, and leadership of unorganized groups and
confused individuals. The headquarters of both fire and police depart-
ments are in the downtown area close to city hall. The police tend to
be more centrally directed than the firemen: the bulk of the control

flows from the downtown office, and there are but two outlying stations,
for the motor patrol (south Worcester) and for the lake shore district
(west). The nineteen or more fire stations, however, tend to be con-
centrated in and around the downtown area too, even though there are
several some distance out. Furthermore, the police department with
its nearly 400 patrolmen and officers, and a number of trained auxiliary
police and constables, had a supply of cruiser cars with two-way radio,
which made possible considerable mobility and flexibility of communica-
tion.

The Civil Defense organization in Worcester was in an embryonic
state, in comparison with the maturity of the police and fire departments
as institutions. Civil Defense was conceived - on paper - to be the
disaster counter-measure agency par excellence. The plan called for
Civil Defense to assume the role of central authority: to mobilize re-
sources, direct field operations, and coordinate existing operating

agencies. Not all of the potential disaster agencies were formally and

4
officially committed to accepting CD control.

Civil Defense in Massachusetts is organized in three levels: the
state level, with headquarters at Boston; the regional level (Worcester
was in Region #3); and the municipal level (Worcester thus had its own

4. Rosow, MS, 1954, Ch. 1.

3: Distribution of Security Agencies

path of tornado

itals

fire stations
City Mall, police KQ, civil defense

Red 3 , HQ

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• M . '•

B~ '

•

• 4':^>r^^M

WORCEST

own CD organization). Region #3 and Worcester shared a common HQ
office in the Worcester auditorium, with one telephone apiece. The
City Manager of Worcester was also the CD director of Region #3. On
the day when I was shown through the auditorium (June 16, 1953) the
civil defense officer in charge, with his telephone, city map, desk, and
files, was ensconced directly beneath a large window (which to this
naive visitor looked like a sure bet, in event of air attack, to cut to
ribbons director, telephone line, maps, and any other staff personnel
who happened to be near).

The mission of the State Civil Defense (on which Worcester of
Region #3 CD could, of course, call) in addition to organizational com-
munication, and educational and training functions, included supplying
certain types of auxiliary heavy equipment and specialized service
(ambulances, trucks, rescue teams). The city Civil Defense had re-
ceived two sets of rescue tools under the Federal Contributions Pro-
gram, but no method had been devised for their transport and no rescue
workers trained in their use. There was no overall system of wardens,
but information on "Duck and Cover" methods of personal protection
under air attack had been widely disseminated, especially in the school
system, and there had been a civil defense drill in June, 1953. But as
of 9 June, 1953, Worcester Civil Defense, in spite of the energetic

5. Rayner, notes, Cowley and Gauthier.

6. Knight, MS.

efforts of the director had developed only an embryonic organization
with physically vulnerable headquarters, and very few trained person-
nel.

The Worcester chapter of the American Red Cross, with head-
quarters on Harvard Street, about a block from CD Headquarters, was,
of course, the local office of the national organization designated by
law as a quasi -governmental agency with responsibility (defined by
congressional charter) for aiding government at various levels in the
event of disaster. Among the recognized functions of the Red Cross
following a disaster is an obligation to assist Civil Defense, under
Civil Defense authority, primarily in the provision of emergency sup-
plies of food, clothing, and shelter; if other agencies cannot handle
rescue, medical care, information and location services, etc. , Red
Cross may assist here too. The Red Cross, both locally and nationally,
has the peculiar position of having a broad but vaguely assigned public
responsibility, with formal cooperation agreements with military, CD,
and other disaster relief agencies, but without access to public funds;
thus relief, accounting and fund-raising activities must proceed hand
in hand. Furthermore, in case of major disaster, area or national
representatives may enter a disaster area and take over from local
representatives the direction of certain Red Cross activities. 7

7. See American Red Cross, When Disaster Strikes: A Chapter Manual
for Disaster Preparedness and Relief (Washington: American National
Red Cross, 1948), pp. 1 -7; American Red Cross, Mass Care in Disas-
ter_ (Washington: American National Red Cross, 1951), pp. 51-53.

It would be possible to continue at some length to describe
policies, organization, and equipment of the counter-measure agencies,
including some which I have not mentioned: the National Guard, the
Weather Bureau, the insurance network, and so on, but this would re-
quire more space than is available. It would also be interesting to
study Worcester's experience in the hurricane of September 21, 1938,
when seventeen were killed and one hundred sixty- six injured in Wor-
cester County. But this too would be beyond the scope of this report.

'*> •

50 W

II: WARNING

THE CITY LEARNS OF IMPENDING IMPACT

Worcester lies in the northeastern United States, where tornadoes

are believed to be less prevalent than to the south and west. Many Wor-
cester residents, after the disaster, commented on their surprise at a
tornado, which they associated with other parts of the south and west.
Tornadoes might hit other people; they might even hit Ohio and Michigan
(Worcester residents had been reading about the tornadoes at Flint and
Cleveland the day before) but not in New England . . . Hurricanes, on
the other hand, are (at least after 1938) understandable!

A warning that a tornado was in the area apparently reached the
telephone company offices in Worcester before 3:45 PM on June 9th.
The telephone company alerted its linemen. The Worcester Telegram
city desk got word of this, and the day city editor visited the telephone
company office to verify the information. The company admitted alert-
ing the linemen but "refused to divulge the source of their information."
The city editor then called the Associated Press in Boston and had them

check with the weather bureau. The weather bureau said they had no

9
tornado reports, only reports of severe storms expected.

8. I suspect that the assumed relative immunity to tornadoes by the
general population in the northeast is a cultural phenomenon. The
Iroquois Indians of New York State were so much impressed by tor-
nadoes that the whirlwind spirit (False Face) was given a central place
in ritual and belief. Flora, 1953, indicates that tornadoes are not in-
frequent in the northeast, although some other regions have more.

9. Powell, MS, 1953.

A similar account of an abortive warning, which was not widely
transmitted to the proper agencies, involved the military air base near
by. Weather reconnaisance planes are said to have spotted the tornado

early in the afternoon, reported it, and returned to the base, which

10
undertook its own storm-protective measures.

A third warning was said to have been contained in a weather broad-
cast during the afternoon from an unidentified station. This broadcast
reported a tornado near Pittsfield, Massachusetts (south-west of Wor-
cester, near the New York State border). A severe storm did actually

occur near Pittsfield, but no tornado, although a funnel-shaped cloud

11
was reported near by.

Within minutes after impact at Worcester, however, a radio
warning did go out over a police network which was picked up by a
patrolman in Fayville, where the impact occurred at about 5:30. The
patrolman drove home, to protect his two sisters and their four chil-
dren, but impact caught them sitting in the living room and they .never
reached the cellar!

10. Field notes.

11. See Worcester Telegram, 10 June 1953, p. 17. These reports on
warnings which were not transmitted or taken seriously are, for obvious
reasons, difficult to verify (because if they are true, they imply either
negligence or incompetence in some one). The reports I note above are
not verified but they may be substantially true. It might be speculated
that this sort of complaining we -could-have -been- warned and why-
weren't-we- warned rumor may often rise after disasters; certainly
such stories acquire considerable publicity - e.g., the report of the
ignored radar operator's report on unidentified aircraft just before the
Pearl Harbor attack.

12. Worcester Telegram, 10 June 1953, p. 11.

U: The Path of the Tornado

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The tornado itself began its career in the Worcester area at
Petersham, about twenty -five miles north-west of Worcester, at
approximately 4:30 PM. It was not until about forty minutes later
that it reached the city limits of Worcester; it was seen at 5:08 PM at
approximately the northern city line. Theoretically, therefore, if a
tornado had been reported to weather bureau at 4:30, even though its
future course would be unknown to the observer, a tornado warning
could have been broadcast to all surrounding communities. Appar-
ently this was not done. Failure to do so was the subject of complaint
by one informant, a representative of a radio station, who said that

there were newsmen at Petersham who could have (assuming telephone

13
circuits were open) at least called the station office in Worcester.

Thus, although the telephone company and the nearby airbase
may have had warning as much as an hour and a half in advance, and
may have taken local security measures, the community at large had
no warning until the tornado was a few minutes away from successive
points in the eventual impact area.

The next cue - but one rarely, if ever, interpreted as a tornado
signal by the Worcester residents - was the appearance of enormous
hailstones. These began to fall about 4:45 PM in the western fringe
of the Worcester area; one caller reported a stone eleven inches in
diameter. Although this type of enormous hailstone is diagnostic of a

13. Interview with Adolphus J. Brissette, 16 June 1953.

nearby tornado condition, Worcester residents did not know what they
meant, and no one is reported to have taken them as tornado warning

signals, although one informant after another reported noticing them

14
and marveling at their size.

The photograph taken at 5:08 PM by a news photographer standing
on the east shore of Indian Lake shows the tornado - cone, whirling

debris, heavy clouds, and lightning - at a point about two miles dis-

15
tant, near the city line.

There were a number of persons in and near the impact area who
saw the cone, recognized it as a tornado, and took some protective
action. Since the tornado as a whole was moving at approximately a
half-mile per minute, this meant that if the tornado were seen at a
distance of two miles, the spectator had about four minutes to take
cover or get out of its path. It is impossible to estimate how many
persons within the impact area saw and recognized the tornado, but
probably there were several hundred.

The potential grace -period afforded by sight of the funnel, rang-
ing up to four or five minutes, was used by those who did see and
recognize it primarily for warning others and taking cover. Thus, a
man in Curtis Apartments saw the funnel in the distance, recognized
it, ran up and down the halls of his wing warning the other residents,

14. See Powell MS, 1953.

15. Cf. Tornado, p. 2; WDT, 10 June 1953, p. 22 for photograph.

Plate 1: THE TORNADO CLOUD AT TWO MILES DISTANCE

This picture was taken at 5:08 looking north-
west from a position on the east shore of
Indian Lake.

and succeeded in getting most or all of the families down into the cellar
before impact. A fourteen-year old boy, delivering papers in the im-
pact area, saw the funnel, ran into a nearby house and told the people a
tornado was approaching; despite their scepticism, everyone took
shelter in the cellar; the house was destroyed. "Scores" of persons
in the tornado's path were reported by the newspaper to have taken to
the cellar after seeing the funnel, and to have remained in safety there
while the superstructure of the house was damaged or destroyed.

Probably the great majority of the population of the impact area
did not see the funnel, and, consequently, did not know that a tornado
was approaching them. The experience of these people, while various
in detail, was generally one of considering the darkening of the sky,
the rising wind, and the pelting rain to be a summer thunder storm.
Those who were out of doors ran into the houses; those in the houses
ran to close doors and windows. Many of these did not realize that
this storm was "different" until a few seconds before maximum impact;
at this point, when the scream of the tornado (generally described as
sounding like a locomotive or a jet plane) was audible, the air was be-
ginning to fill with mud and debris, and windows and trees were begin-
ning to break, an almost intuitive awareness that disaster was upon
them tripped off emergency action even without rational understanding

16. Powell, MS, 1953.

17. WDT, 10 June 1953, p. 22.

of the event. These people had only a few seconds before maximum
impact. Many tried to reach the cellars (often from the second or
third floor of houses); many, for some reason, tried to open doors
and get out of the house; some took cover under furniture, in closets,
under the stairs, etc; many began a frantic search for children or
relatives. In many cases, these actions were uncompleted at the time
of impact; the cellar had not been reached, children had not been
gathered together, the door wouldn't open (fortunately).

An intensive analysis of this last-second-reaction period would
be interesting to FCDA, since it approximates the situation envisaged
in CD popular instructions on "what to do when there is a blinding
flash. "

I have made an analysis of fifty more or less adequate case his-
tories of persons in the Worcester impact area at the time of the tor-
nado. The total population of the impact area is uncertain, although
it could be computed approximately; it probably was about 9, 000 per-
sons. The fifty interviews are an undefined sample of this universe of
impact-area people. The interviews themselves used in the series of
fifty were obtained from several sources: Jeannette Rayner, an exper-
ienced disaster interviewer with a psychiatric orientation, three inter-
views; Edna Barrabee, a psychiatric social worker, nineteen interviews;
John Powell, an experienced disaster interviewer with a psychiatric
orientation, three interviews; Enoch Callaway, working for Powell,

three interviews; Anthony F. C. Wallace, two interviews; obtained by
reporters on the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, sixteen interviews;
obtained by reporters of Radio Station WTAG, four interviews. This
sample tends to be heavily weighted in favor of persons severely in-
jured and consequently available at the hospital to Rayner and Barrabee,
who were doing a study of medical care; and persons with minimal
physical injury, but with a dramatic human interest story to tell to news
men. Nevertheless, granting the uneven quality of the interviews and
sampling inadequacies, the high or low frequencies of certain character-
istics in this series are suggestive of at least similarly high or low
frequencies in the impact population.

The distribution of interviews by locality of interviews at time of
impact is as follows:

DISTRIBUTION OF INTERVIEWEES BY LOCALITY (see map)

Brattle Street area 1

Industrial area 1

Greendale area 14

Assumption College 3

Burncoat Street area 1

St. Nicholas development area 5

Great Brook Valley area 11

Curtis Apartments 6

Lincolnwood 2

Home Farm 5

Not recorded 1

N = 50

While this probably is not a proportionate sample, there is at least a
considerable scattering of interviewee locations.

The composition of the series by sex and injury is instructive;
there were twenty-eight males and twenty-two females; twenty-five
seriously injured and twenty-five slightly injured or uninjured. The
women in the impact area tended to be more seriously injured than the
men: only eleven out of twenty-eight males were seriously hurt, but
fourteen out of only twenty-two females were seriously hurt.

Not one of the fifty cases had received any official warning (i. e. ,
by radio or telephone, police loudspeaker, etc. ) of a tornado's being
in the region. Thus, warning possibilities resolved into a recognition
of any one of a series of cues, beginning with the fall of unusually large
hailstones (a frequent but not invariable omen of a tornado), and cul-
minating in the approach of a visible funnel, increasing wind, loud
noise, and, finally, personal impact.

Not one of the fifty indicated that he recognized the hailstones as
possible tornado indicators, although many remembered having seen
them and being impressed by their size as long as fifteen minutes or
more before impact.

Twenty-two out of the fifty saw the funnel of the approaching tor-
nado; but only fourteen of these twenty-two recognized it for what it
was, as indicated below:

INTERPRETATIONS OF SIGHT OF FUNNEL,

Recognized it as tornado 14

Did not know what it was 5

Considered the possibility of it's being

a tornado, but dismissed the thought 2

Thought it was smoke from a fire set by

lightning in thunderstorm 1

Thus, of our sample of fifty cases, only fourteen - less than one-third
- saw and recognized the tornado cloud. The data recorded do not give
more than hints as to factors responsible for not seeing the funnel: a
few people were asleep, some were in a house or apartment with win-
dows facing to leeward, and some apparently could have seen it but
just didn't notice (automobile drivers in the area, children playing,
etCo ).

Of our fifty cases, thirty-nine (78 per cent) recognized some
warning cue before personal impact. Fourteen (28 per cent of the
total) saw the funnel and recognized the danger; twenty-one (42 per cent
of the total) recognized a danger from other clues closer to impact
time; only four (8 per cent of the total) were warned by others.

Of our fifty cases, twenty-eight (56 per cent) were able to com-
plete some personal protective measures before personal impact.
Twenty of these twenty-eight (40 per cent of the total) reported warning
others or helping others in protective action before completing their

own measures; only eight (16 per cent) reported taking protective

1 8
action oriented only towards their own safety. Twenty-two persons

(44 per cent of the sample) were unable to complete (and in some
cases, unable even to initiate) protective action before personal impact.
Of these twenty-two, six suffered impact while attempting tardy pro-
tective action, but five took no protective action even during the impact

itself.

18. N. B. : We are depending on reports of own actions.

HI: IMPACT

THE TORNADO STRIKES

At approximately 5:08 PM, EOT, the tornado reached the Wor-
cester city line. It had been traveling in a southeasterly direction,
and (unbeknownst, apparently, to anyone in Worcester) had originated
at Petersham, near the Quabbin reservoir, about forty minutes earlier,
at 4:30 PM. The tornado as a body was moving forward at about twenty -

five miles per hour, and crossed the northeastern corner of Worcester

19
(a path three and a half miles long) in almost exactly eight minutes.

The diameter of the vortex itself was approximately a half-mile.
Since the forward motion of the tornado was at a rate of a little less
than half a mile per minute, the passage of the vortex over a point in
the middle of the path required little over one minute.

This was an unusually severe tornado: it was large in diameter;
the velocity of the wind in the outer ring was extremely high (estimates
of winds in comparable tornadoes go as high as 500 miles per hour);
and the air pressure within the high velocity ring was very low. No
reading of the pressure within the vortex was made, but in comparable
tornadoes where readings were made, the pressure dropped as much
as two pounds per square inch. The funnel was photographed (see
Figure 1) at a point near the Worcester -Holden line: it shows a broad

19. WDT, 10 June 1953, p. 22.

and high, roughly funnel-shaped cloud, but does not show a clearly
outlined funnel touching the ground. This was probably hidden behind
trees and a hill. Several informants reported seeing a vortex shaped
like a "snake," "an ice cream cone in the sky," or "a whirling cloud, "
but this may have been a secondary elaboration in fantasy, since a
base a half-mile in diameter, spewing out mud and debris, would even
at a distance of one or two miles probably not appear to have a very
sharp outline. The color was reported as "black, " at a distance of a
mile or two, but "brown" {with mud) at close range, and circulating
boards, boxes, paper, and other debris were clearly visible in it. It
made a very loud sound, described by survivors as reminding them of
several steam or diesel locomotives, or a flight of jet planes as it
approached; at impact, the pitch rose to a "scream."

The path of the tornado through Massachusetts and through Wor-
cester, where it maintained continuous contact with the ground, is
charted on Maps 2 and 4.

The primary impact of the tornado is the physical damage and
injury wrought by the tornado during its eight-minute passage through
the impact area; certain other sorts of hazard or disaster, such as
fires, electrocution by "hot" wires, sepsis in untreated wounds, and
consequences of destruction of food, clothing, and shelter, are classi-
fied as secondary impact and will be treated later. The primary im-
pact may be conceived of as a three -stage process for most of the im-
pact area: high wind, "vacuum, " high wind again.

KAF 5: Disaster Space at I -Time (5:0g to 5:20 P.M.)

*••••* area of total impact
••W* area of fringe impact
• ^••« filter area
The other areas have not yet been defined,

f\ a /\ a ^

The first stage is high velocity wind as the front of the vortex
crosses a position. The first high wind generally did not blow down
structures; but it blew windows in or out, depending on whether they
were to windward or leeward; plastered buildings with mud; drove
debris into people or structures, sometimes driving objects through
wooden walls; knocked down or bent over trees, flag poles, hurricane
fence; toppled and rolled over cars, shacks, people, and relatively
light movable objects; and subjected structures generally to stresses
which tended to weaken or displace members.

The second stage - low pressure - apparently was not accompan-
ied by high velocity wind. This however, was, to structures, probably
the most destructive aspect of the whole impact; survivors' reports
seem to agree on this. The first high wind suddenly stopped and at
almost the same instant the air pressure dropped perhaps 10 or 15
per cent, equivalent to two or three pounds per square inch. The quick-
ness of this drop in pressure apparently is dramatic; and it is the sud-
den drop which seems to account for many of the freak events. In
lightly built structures, or structures with a large flat area without
"escape valves" like windows, chimneys, doors, etc. , the pressure
drop meant the equivalent of a sudden application of tremendous forces
outward and upward. Actually, of course, the pressure within a struc-
ture does not increase; but the withdrawal of air from the outside
meant that inside air was pressing out against all objects with about

fourteen pounds to the square inch, while the outside air was pushing
back with perhaps twelve pounds per square inch: a differential of two
pounds. Applied for example to an outside wall of a house eight feet
high and ten feet long, there was thus an increase in outward lateral
thrust from zero to eleven and a half tons within a period of a few
seconds at most; and this occurred immediately following the applica-
tion of considerable stress, in many instances in an opposite direction,
from high velocity wind. Many structures simply exploded: informant
after informant describes how, after a few moments of raging wind,
the whole building seemed to dissolve, in slow motion, and they would
find themselves sitting in quietness and relatively uninjured in the
yard, surrounded by pieces of house. Where the structure did not
"explode, " the rush of air from inside proceeded to blow out windows
and doors, and to carry out any movable object - including people,
refrigerators, television sets, chairs, and tables. This "floating
away" was made possible, apparently, by two forces: (1) the lateral
evacuation of air through vents like broken windows and doors; and
(2) by a vertical differential air pressure, which I think must be postu-
lated to explain the lifting of objects and the frequently referred to
"floating" phenomenon. An example of this "floating" phenomenon,
which baffled victims and added to the uncanniness of the experience,
is given by the little girl who was in the kitchen with her mother and
father at impact. The mother and daughter were cooking supper, and

disregarded the first high wind as being only a bad thunder storm. They
had just put the potatoes for baking in the oven when the pressure dif-
ferential came. A strange thing happened: "the potatoes came out of
the oven and went over and hit my daddy on the head. " A woman saw
a pane of glass, blown in by the high wind, float gently to the cement
floor of her cellar without breaking. Two mothers reported seeing
their children float away from their side; each time the mother grabbed
the child and pulled it down, like pulling in a balloon floating away.
Many observers reported seeing heavy objects float across the floor
toward a window, not scraping the floor, and moving slowly. One man.
was carrying a crate of eggs; "the eggs were popping out of the crate
but they weren't falling to the ground." The explanation of the float-
ing phenomenon must be that when a "vacuum cap" is placed over the
area, the "free" air out-of-doors is sucked out almost instantly; the
air within structures goes next; but in-structure pockets of high pres-
sure air remain, particularly under objects like chairs, TV sets, and
even people, and in places like ovens, eggcrate partitions, etc. It is
quite obvious, for instance, that if even so small and dense an object
as an egg or a potato or a child's body were placed between a region
of twelve-pound air above and fourteen -pound air below, the pressure
differential on the upper and lower surfaces would be sufficient to
float it. The pressure differential may help explain how cars, loco-
motives, and even sidewalks are lifted up. Inasmuch as this floating

phenomenon was very commonly reported, it would seem reasonable
to suggest that in any type of disaster, like tornadoes, where vacuum
effects are common, the population be prepared to cope with it.

It is my impression (I cannot document it adequately) that it was
the explosion effect which actually demolished most of the structures
which were demolished, but that it was the severe high wind, following
the explosion, which caused a larger share of the severe casualties and
deaths. Except for those who were caught in the open or were in ve-
hicles at the first wind, most of the interviewees weathered it in their
own structures. The "explosion" was tempered by the floating effect,
which tended to lift the roof off, and push the sides out, rather slowly,
so that many persons were either not covered by the debris, or were
not crushed to death when it did come down on them. But after perhaps
fifteen to thirty seconds of the "vacuum" the high wind came back (the
back wall of the tornado). This caught many people in a bad situation:
many were now in the open; they were dazed and bewildered; they were
surrounded by loose and movable debris. The second passage of high
velocity wind thus, so to speak, "finished the job, " by blowing sur-
vivors about, or by blowing debris onto or into them, or both. Some
people also ran out of relatively undamaged structures during the
vacuum period, and were then swept up by the second high wind.

Thus for the person in the central path, there was a triple 1-2-3
punch to weather: an initial high wind with dangers of severe injury or

death if caught outside, or of breaking glass and structural weakening
if inside; then the vacuum, with the "floating" effect and slow "explo-
sion" of structures; and finally, the second high wind, which struck
structures which had either crumbled or were severely weakened, and
found many people in the open surrounded by the ruins of their shelter.

This generalization, of course, applies best to those people and
structures dead center in the tornado's path. For a person at the ex-
treme edge on either side, there was presumably no "vacuum" period
and only one long high wind period. Intermediate points between edge
and center no doubt experienced varying lengths of vacuum period, and
directions and lengths of high wind.

The impact area can be divided into an area of "total" impact,
where structural damage was severe and the population suffered
deaths and many severe injuries, and an area of "fringe" impact, where
structural damage was slight (broken windows, torn shingles, mud-
spattering, broken tree limbs, and the like). The total impact area
itself can for the sake of convenience of reference and analysis be
further subdivided into ten neighborhoods, which are located and num-
bered on Map 6:

1) Brattle Street area. A middle class residential neighborhood
including large frame detached single homes in the $20, 000-
$30, 000 class, on large lots, on high ground, as well as
smaller bungalow-type housing, looking out over undeveloped
land.

2) Industrial area. The Norton Company (specializing in grinding
and abrasives equipment); Vellumoid Corporation (makers of

gaskets and gasket materials); the Diamond Match Company;
and other manufacturing and business concerns, and some
deteriorated housing, were located here. The Industrial area
is in a valley.

3) Greendale. A lower -middle class to middle class residential
neighborhood, mostly frame structures, including various
small shops and stores, some detached homes, some "3-
deckers" (each story serving as a "tenement" or apartment).
Three churches were located in this area, and it seemed to
house a number of elderly or retired persons who had invested
their life savings in a house (often a "three-decker") of which
they occupied one floor while renting out the rest. Greendale
is in a valley and on the slope of the rather steep hill that
rises to Burncoat.

4) Assumption College. A Catholic college and secondary school
conducted by lay brothers and priests of the Assumptionist
order. Many of the staff of priests, nuns, and brothers were
French -Canadian in origin, and many spoke only French. The
plant included a brick main administration building and a
wooden convent. Assumption College's structures are all in
the valley, although the College land reaches up to Burncoat
Street.

5) Burncoat Street area. Upper Burncoat Street is a "nice"
residential area on the top of the hill with a small shopping
center, houses ranging from perhaps $15, 000 to $30, 000 in
value, relatively large lots. St. Michael's on the Heights
Episcopal Church is on Burncoat Street.

6) St. Nicholas Development area. This is an area of post-war
development housing, of two major types: two-storey, four-
apartment frame structures for rent; and single storey de-
tached bungalows on cement slabs. There are, however,
other types of detached single -family houses within this area.
The families here tend to be a typical "development population":
young couples, small children, careers in the making.

7) Great Brook Valley. This contained two types of housing:
some privately owned, detached, single -family frame dwellings;
and Great Brook Valley Gardens, a housing project, owned by
the Worcester Housing Authority, consisting of one -storey
brick row houses, with picture windows, completed just a few
weeks before impact.

1
3

6: Neighborhoods in the Impact Area

Brattle Street 6. St. Nicholas Development

Industrial 7. Great Brook Valley

Greendale 8. Curtis Apartments

Assumption College 9. Home Farm

Burncoat Street 10. Idncolnwood

8) Curtis Apartments. These were large brick apartment build-
ings (also owned by the Worcester Housing Authority). 3000
people lived here.

9) The Home Farm. A city -supported home for old and indigent
persons. Administration building of brick; wooden barracks;
farm buildings.

10) Lincolnwood. War temporary housing, consisting of twenty-
two reconverted frame barracks. Many of these had been
removed, and many were standing empty. Some scattered
privately owned dwellings stood here too.

The total amount of physical trauma produced by the primary im-
pact was very great. The impact area within the Worcester city limits
was approximately two square miles. Within this area were about 1800
dwellings, the homes of about 9, 000 persons. Since a large part of the
labor force component of this population was outside of the impact area
(coming home from work) at i-time, as well as some mothers et al
who were shopping, visiting, etc. , probably the population of the impact
area at i-time was not more than 8, 000 and possibly was much less. Of
this population, 804 (about 10 per cent) were "casualties" (here defined
as being killed or as being taken to the hospital). Of the 804, sixty-six
were killed (less than 1 per cent of the impact area population); 327 suf-
fered major injuries; and 411 suffered "minor" injuries. Presumably
all deaths and major injuries are included in these figures, collected
by the Red Cross from hospital records, but no doubt there were many
minor injuries which were either left untreated, or were treated
privately by physicians, nurses, neighbors, or the victims themselves.

Estimates of these would be very difficult to verify; as a guess, one
might suggest that if these unreported minor injuries (slight cuts,

bruises, scrapes, etc.) were included, the total casualty rate would

20
be about 25 per cent of the impact area population.

An analysis of fifty-six of the sixty-six deaths by sex, age, and
residence indicates chiefly that (as one might expect from knowing that
many wage -earners were outside of the area at i-time) females suf-
fered more than males:

FATAL CASUALTIES BY NEIGHBORHOOD

(1) Brattle Street Area 1

(2) Industrial Area 0

(3) Assumption College Area 3

(4) Greendale Area 9

(5) Burncoat Area 5

(6) St. Nicholas Area 8

(7) 'Great Brook Valley Area 15

(8) Curtis Apartments Area 0

(9) Home Farm Area 5

(10) Lincoln wood Area 0

Visiting in or driving through impact area
(resident elsewhere in Worcester or Worcester
County) 8

N - 54

The data available do not make possible a tabulation of specific cause
of death or of the behavioral circumstances at the time of fatal injury,
but according to the medical report, most of the deaths were caused
by or associated with severe cranial injuries. Several casualties

20. Bakst et al. , 1953.

21. Bakst et al, 1953, appendix.

died of lung injuries resulting from the "vacuum" condition and several
informants remarked on having difficulty breathing during impact.
Some bodies were found with an empty cranium; presumably the cranial
contents were "sucked" out of the cranial cavity after the cranium was
crushed.

FATAL CASUALTIES BY AGE AND SEX

Age Group Male Female

0-9 0 3

10-19 4 3

20-29 0 4

30-39 2 4

40-49 2 2

50-59 3 2

60-69 3 1

70-79 0 4

80-89 1 0

Age unknown 7 1 1

22 34

The Red Cross tabulated the type of injury in the 438 "major
injury" patients, as follows:

TYPES OF MAJOR INJURY

Fractures 242
Skull (usually involving cerebral injury) 77

Arms and legs, hands, feet 88

Ribs 32

Shoulder 21

Pelvis, hip 15

Misc. (no broken backs) 9

Soft tissue 210

Major cuts and bruises 147

Eye 28

Back 15

Internal (kidney, spleen) 15

Burns 5

Total major injuries 452

It was also noteworthy that most casualties (and, indeed, any person
exposed to the high winds) had been literally plastered with a mixture
of water, dirt, sand, wood splinters, etc. ; where there were open
wounds, this foreign matter had been driven into the wounds with such
force that adequate cleaning was very difficult, and a number of cases
of infected wounds turned up later on (after suturing).

The statistics of structural damage in Worcester are only ap-
proximate. About 2500 dwelling units were in the impact area. Of
these, 250 were totally destroyed; about 1200 seriously damaged, and

about 1000 were slightly damaged. The financial cost of the destruc-

tion in Worcester alone was about $32, 000, 000. In the entire dis-
aster area, from Petersham to Wrentham, the total number of dead
was 94, seriously injured, 438; about 750 minor injuries were hos-
pitalized the night of June 9; about 4000 dwelling units were damaged

or destroyed; 1200 persons were unhoused; total damage was in the

neighborhood of $52, 000, 000.

See the pages of photographs for a survey of the physical damage
in Worcester, area by area.

The sixty-seconds or less of the impact period were, for most
of the people in the impact area, a time of busy physical activity. On
forty-nine of the fifty survivors whose behavior during the warning

22. Bakst: Landstreet; Bowman: Powell; WTG and WTAG.

23. Ibid.

o
o

I
I

•a!
CO

\ *

period was surveyed, there is also information on what they were doing
during impact (i.e., during the whole of the passage of the vortex, or
during the part of it that preceded disabling personal injury). Sixteen
of these forty-nine (about one-third of the group) spent the i-time
finding and enjoying shelter: six lying on the open floor of a room,
five in the cellar, three in a closet or other enclosed space, and two
under furniture. Seven were inside a structure and running to a place
of shelter (such as the cellar or a closet when they were struck per-
sonally and severely injured. Seven were attempting to manipulate
(usually to close) doors and windows when they were struck and
severely injured. Six were rushing about inside a structure, trying to
care for other persons, when they were struck. Two (both clergymen,
incidentally) stood in doorways gazing at the storm all during i-time.
One person grabbed a pillar for support. Only two persons were
apparently unaware of the tornado until personal impact; both were
women; and one was sitting on a porch talking about the weather, while
the other was washing her hands in the kitchen; neither of these attempt-
ed any protective action before or during the impact. Six persons were
in cars during i-time: four of these were able to crouch under the dash-
board; one was trying to stop the car when the car was picked up and
blown into a field; and one was able to drive out of the tornado's path.
Two persons on foot in the open were running to shelter when they
were injured: one was blown against a tree, and one was knocked
down by a collapsing brick wall.

Ji-i

IV: ISOLATION

The Impact Area Goes It Alone

The period of functional isolation for the impact area varied from
a minute or two, in some of the southern fringe areas, to perhaps half
an hour in parts of the central and north-western sections of the impact
zone. Since the isolation period begins at the moment when the primary
impact ceases, its clock-time varies depending on location; the isola-
tion period at Brattle Street was seven or eight minutes old by the time
impact had begun at the Home Farm.

The situation at the beginning of the isolation period is the im-
mediate legacy of the impact: a definite quantity of physical damage,
personal injury, and death. This primary damage is for practical
purposes irreversible during the isolation period; and the energies
of the survivors are, during the period before the arrival of aid,
necessarily directed toward preventing further death, injury, and
destruction, from the processes set in motion by the primary impact.
These potentially destructive processes, launched by the primary im-
pact, include such things as:

a) bleeding from wounds

b) interferences with respiratory processes

c) wound shock

d) development of various "infections" in wounds

e) entrapment

f) fires, set by lightning, cigarettes, short-circuiting wires,
sparks, etc. , and feeding especially on spilled gasoline and
escaping cooking gas;

g) "hot" high voltage or heavy current wires lying in the way of
moving persons

h) exposure to rain, sun, cold, etc.

i) if isolation is prolonged, hunger and thirst.

These potentially destructive processes, set in motion by the primary
impact, may collectively be called secondary impact. During the time
before effective assistance, particularly organized assistance, by
police, fire, civil defense, medical, and other organizations reaches
a survivor, he must cope with secondary impact alone.

The length of the isolation period varied in Worcester. Organized
aid in the form of police cruiser cars, fire equipment, and ambulances,
reached the Home Farm, Great Brook Valley, and Curtis Apartments

areas within five to ten minutes. This was owing in part to the fortu-

.
nate accident that telephone communication with central Worcester had

not been cut off by primary impact. Within about a minute at least
three telephone notifications to Worcester security units had been
made: the assistant executive director of the Curtis Apartments, him-
self a minor casualty (his car was blown about and he was cut by

glass), heard a phone ringing and used it to call police, fire, City
Hospital, gas company and electric power company; a housewife in
Great Brook Valley used her own phone to call City Hospital and tell
them to send ambulances; and someone (unidentified) told the Fire
Department headquarters that there had been a boiler explosion at the
Home Farm. A box alarm was turned in at the Home Farm at the same
time. A ladder company with rescue crew and first aid equipment was
on the way toward the Home Farm at 5:15 PM; this company, indeed,
nearly ran into the tornado itself on the way down Plantation Street,
and managed to get into the hail zone on its fringes. The path of the
tornado and of the fire engine were approaching an intersection south
of the Home Farm, and the tornado got there first by a minute or two.
This ladder company set to rescue work at the Home Farm within five
minutes of impact; and they were helped in driving into the area by the
crews of police cruisers who were already setting up a road block on
Lake Street.

It is difficult to pick out the particular area which was last to be
taken out of isolation by the arrival of aid, but probably portions of the
Burncoat Street and St. Nicholas Development areas, and the Brattle
Street area (difficult of access on account of narrow streets, hills,
trees, and traffic jams) were last to be invaded by rescue forces. But
even here the isolation period was not long; probably no point in the im-
pact area was left un-checked, or had been unable to communicate with

sources of aid, by thirty minutes after impact. The average length of
the isolation period was probably about fifteen minutes; by that time
residents of the filter area, firemen, or police had appeared and were
within calling distance.

The general scene during this short isolation period is difficult
to reconstruct because outside observers had not arrived and those in
the area were not always in the best position or frame of mind to ob-
serve objectively (or to remember without distortion later). A general-
ized reconstruction from the comments made by survivors, however,
suggests a scene like this:

While many persons had been taking cover in cellars or closets,
many others had been frantically active all during the impact. These
activities carried on directly into the isolation period, with searching
for children, scurrying for cover, etc. , continuing until it was obvious
that the primary impact was really past. Then ensued a brief frenzy
of action and reaction: sudden frantic efforts to rescue self and trapped
relatives, screams and cries for help, hysterical laughing and crying,
particularly (as reported) by teen-age girls, people rushing up and
down stairs, into and out of cars, houses, etc. , checking on the wel-
fare of others; shouted warnings to "look out for the wire," "don't
light any matches, " etc. Some, able to walk, spontaneously ran or
were dispatched to neighboring fringe and filter areas to summon aid:
these persons turned in fire alarms at boxes, called security agencies

(police, fire, and hospitals) by phone, and brought in trucks, people
with bandages and antiseptics, and other first aid resources. Other
persons were busy in self or local rescue, usually of a relative living
in the same or adjacent house. Even severely injured persons made
efforts to extricate themselves, to summon help, to estimate the
seriousness and character of their own injuries, and to give instructions
to rescuers on what to do and not to do. The reports which I have seen
do not show that impact was followed - as is sometimes asserted - by
a deadly calm, silence, and absence of motion. Quite the contrary:
there was a great deal of noise and much self-help and mutual aid
activity.

For those whose injuries were severe but who were conscious the
general pattern of action was:

(1) immediately after impact, to orient themselves (by
finding out where they were physically, what their
injuries were, and what should be done to get help,
or to rescue themselves);

(2) to extricate themselves physically, if possible, or if
that is impossible, to call for help;

(3) if extrication was achieved, to go towards help, or to
a protected or more comfortable place;

(4) occasionally, to render some assistance or give some
directions to other members of the family;

(5) once having oriented themselves, achieved rescue or
summoned help, and done what was possible to help or
direct other family members, to subside into a dazed
and apparently apathetic state.

For those who were not seriously injured, the general pattern

was:

(1) personal orientation (which was often less of a task,
since many of these people were in cellars, closets,
etc.);

(2) personal extrication and minor first aid if necessary;

(3) rescue and first aid to personal family members (if any);

(4) awareness of the extent of community damage.

The uninjured group, however, splits at this point into a group who,
having cared for self and family, do nothing more to aid neighbors or
the community, and those who proceed to rescue, communications,
first aid, etc. Among the former (non-helpers) are some who:

(5) simply block out of emotionally significant awareness
their perception of the extent of damage to the community
and the possibility of their being of help. One of the
cases interviewed was not aware for perhaps half an
hour that anyone else had been affected but himself.

(6) after performing minimal care for relatives, do nothing
at all (simply sit or stand or wander aimlessly) or do
inconsequential tasks like searching through clothes,
papers, etc.

(7) after caring for relatives, simply play a sightseer's
role (in one case complaining later that he would have
been too much upset by the sight of bloody, mangled
bodies to take part in rescue work).

It seems, in the group of non-helpers, that the transition from a family-
oriented rescue role to a community-oriented rescue role is blocked

approximately at the time when such a person, having cared for minimal,

.&!.&*& 'jtJ»rl<
immediate personal and family needs, first recognizes that the visible

community itself has been smashed. One might speculate that such
persons have rather flimsy identifications with community -service
roles, and that while they can perform these roles if they are sup-
ported by visible and tangible evidence of a strong community, when
the evidence shows a crushed and maimed community, they are simply
incapable of such action as long as they are on their own (although once
community aid begins to pour in, they can perform community service
roles again). The helper group, on the other hand, theoretically
should have firmly established, deeply internalized community service
role -identification systems which operate to govern behavior even in
the absence of evidence of external support.

The actions of the helper group, following the first three stages
common to the non-seriously injured and uninjured, seem also on the
basis of a few cases to follow a fairly regular phase -pattern:

(5) vigorous but rather random rescue, first-aid, and
advice activities, with an effort to cover as much area
as possible;

(6) awareness of extreme fatigue when community aid arrives;

(7) return to care of family;

(8) in some cases, a second "go" at aiding the community,
followed again by a feeling of exhaustion and futility.

The accounts of survivor -behavior during the isolation period
leave the reader with the feeling that it was for the most part limited
by the emotional impact as well as by the lack of tools and equipment

to a rather narrow range of things: physical extrication of persons;
jacking up or propping up unstable debris; setting victims on the lawn,
wrapping them with blanket or coat, and offering a cigarette; some in-
efficient first aid procedures, chiefly bandaging wounds. Little or
nothing could be done about live wires, the fires that were starting
here and there (at least seven fires were under way), the leaking of
gas or water, etc. , beyond mutual warning and efforts to notify people
outside. Little could really be done about severe wounds, badly trapped
persons, or the securing of shelter from the rain without evacuating
the area. By the end of the isolation period, some people were begin-
ning to do this (chiefly in order to get the wounded to hospitals), but
there was during the isolation period no real evacuation movement at
all. The reaction -formula seemed to be (the community-oriented per-
sons excepted): to combat secondary impact up to the minimum neces-
sary to preserve life in one's self and relatives, and then, unless
specifically asked for aid, to sit and wait for help.

The crucial factor distinguishing the two groups probably is the
reaction of the person to the sight of a virtually destroyed community.
Again and again in the interviews the phrase "the end of the world"
occurs to describe the phantasy of survivors; the sight of block after

bOJ.T3Q fiOJt£fO«ri 9tl1 ^Blti

block of ruined homes, of maimed and bleeding people, fallen trees,

scarred and lifeless lawns, bedraggled wires, and everything covered
3/1 .".VT^iu ;->:•» i.-j£ e fc c

with mud, aroused momentarily in many the thought that this was the

earth's last hour, or that an atomic bomb had fallen, or that the whole
city of Worcester was in ruins. I would speculate that the "sitting
dazed and staring," the "aimless wandering," the "unconsequential
small talk," and other irrelevant behavior so commonly reported by
the first outsiders to enter the impact area was the behavior of non-
helpers who, having done what they had to do for themselves and family,
suddenly realized that this was not an accident, this was a community
disaster - and simply stopped functioning. The helpers, on the other
hand, were able to incorporate the knowledge into their action-systems
that this was not an accident, this was a disaster, and to proceed from
self -and -family services to community services.

In a sample of thirty -nine cases (out of the fifty previously
chosen) on whom there were data concerning experience during the
isolation period, it appears that ten (26 per cent) were unable to help
either themselves or anyone else. Nine of these cases were immobi-
lized by the severity of their injury or the completeness of their en-
trapment; one was immobilized by anxiety, although uninjured, and was
finally "rescued" after several hours, by an organized rescue team.
Eleven of the sample (28 per cent) cared only for themselves during
the isolation period: four of these were elderly, single men, residents
of the Home Farm, and all were seriously injured persons who rescued
themselves; six were housewives, all severely injured and unable to
rescue themselves, but active in calling for help and in giving

directions to rescuers; and one was a little girl who followed directions
and, although cut, walked to the ambulance. Eight persons (21 per cent)
helped themselves and their families but undertook to give no aid to
stricken neighbors nor to perform other community aid services.
Five of these were men and three were women. Four of them were
seriously injured. Of the uninjured, one was a member of a city
security unit who theoretically should have been doing rescue work,
especially since he and his family were unhurt. Two other men with
no substantial personal or family injury gave no community aid in the
disaster area. And one woman, a housewife, was preoccupied with
locating and maintaining control of her six children.

Thus, in the sample of thirty-nine, only ten persons (26 per cent)
were able to perform rescue, first aid, communications, or other ser-
vice to the stricken area during the isolation period.

These ten, however, constituted 67 per cent of the fifteen un-
injured among the sample of thirty-nine. Nine were men, one was a
woman. Five of them had families and all of these five had cared for
their families before doing community service. Eight of the ten already
had a professionally assigned disaster role: three were clergymen, two
were firemen, one was a doctor (a psychiatrist), one was the assistant
executive director of Curtis Apartments, and one was an auxiliary
policeman. It is notable that seven of the eight had already chosen
these community- responsible roles as full-time careers. Two of the

"helpers" had had no community responsibility or disaster role at all:
one was a housewife in Great Brook Valley, uninjured, who called City
Hospital and told them to send ambulances; one was a family man, also
uninjured, of Great Brook Valley, who engaged in rescue work until
his missing son was brought home, severely injured (he had been
caught in the open and blown into a tree).

It is difficult to estimate the significance of the percentages in
the various categories above, because the sample is by no means
representative: it is proportionately over-represented in seriously
injured persons and in persons with professional disaster roles (inter-
viewers turned to them naturally for information), and therefore probably
the proportions of "unable to help" and "did community service" are too
high.

In summary, it would appear that among survivors without major
injury somewhere in the neighborhood of 67 per cent were able within
about fifteen minutes after impact to orient themselves, care for family,
and begin to help the community as such. About 33 per cent of these
relatively uninjured persons, within this approximate fifteen minute
time limit, were unable to undertake roles of help beyond the confines
of the family. This latter group presumably includes many of the
"dazed" persons described by early observers. At impact-plus -5
minutes, probably a larger percentage of uninjured persons would
appear to be dazed; at impact-plus-30 minutes, no doubt the percentage

would be lower. In other words, the percentage of "non-helpers" is a
function not only of susceptibility to a "dazed" reaction but also of the
time elapsed after impact (and, looking beyond the Worcester event,
perhaps also of such situational factors as the suddenness, unexpected-
ness, duration, and destructiveness of impact).

It is difficult to comment on the patterns of leadership in the im-
pact area during the isolation period at Worcester. The data given
above suggest that during the first fifteen minutes after impact very
few persons assumed roles of leadership responsibility (i. e. , commun-
ity-oriented roles) who had not held roles of formal responsibility to
the community before impact. This seems on the surface to be at
variance with the frequently reported post-disaster phenomenon of
"spontaneous" or "emergent" leadership by previously inconspicuous
persons, partly to fill roles functionally emptied by the injury, absence,
or failure to perform adequately of many "official" leaders. The Wor-
cester situation, however, made emergent leadership functionally
almost unnecessary, since (as will be developed later) the isolation
period was short and the community counter-measure agencies were
intact. Furthermore, during the first fifteen minutes after impact,
persons who had leadership roles already assigned to them probably
found it easier to act as leaders than potential "emergent" leaders,
who probably require a longer period of orientation because they need
to orient themselves not only to a new situation but to a new role. In

MAP 7: Disaster Space at 5:3C .

•••••* total impact
•i fri~ ' .pact

— • — • . •"'.. " .er area

— — —•organized community aid (as yet, notification and mobilization
;f community are fr^ . • • .

•- . I - I. . . ** .— .,... ' • ... I . • . •• L ..

other words, even in situations, unlike Worcester, where spontaneous
leaders do ultimately become very important, the first leaders to act
may be those who already occupy leadership status.

Things were happening outside the impact area, however, that
were related to the disaster, during the approximately fifteen minutes
while the impact area itself was still isolated. First of all, the filter
area and community-aid areas were differentiating and assuming their
disaster -related functions. Secondly, within the community-aid area,
the appropriate security agency headquarters, stations, and adminis-
trators were being notified, and were in turn mobilizing their person-
nel. Thirdly, various operating agencies were setting themselves in
motion: police cruisers, ambulances, and fire trucks were already on
their way, or even (as for example, with the ladder company above-
mentioned) already were approaching or at the scene.

The differentiation and role -as sumption of a filter area depended
not on official notification or mobilization, but on the virtually simul-
taneous influx into the area of visual and auditory stimuli from two
directions. The filter area may, in a negative sort of way, be defined
as that zone around the impact area, virtually all the residents of which
are aware of the disaster within five minutes, without formal notifica-
tion, because of the visible, audible, smell, etc., evidences of impact;
because of the influx of the first evacuees from the impact area; because
of the development of traffic jams as hundreds of working people - in

many cases, the parents, children, or other relatives of impact area
people - in automobiles piled up at the barricades of trees, structural
debris, and live wires at the edges of the impact area; and because of
the influx of security vehicles and apparatus (police cruiser cars,
patrol wagons, ambulances, and fire apparatus), much of it equipped
with sirens and blinkers, also piling up in the traffic jams until both
private cars and debris had been cleared away. Thus the filter area
was saturated, as it were, with disaster stimuli, from both directions;
through it passed communication, equipment, and personnel, at maxi-
mum concentration. For the filter area, the stimulus was multiple,
continuous, and preoccupying; in other parts of the city, it was
selective, discontinuous, and "news. "

During the isolation period, to judge from impressionistic
accounts, filter -area people played a variety of roles. They were in
a peculiar situation of knowing that something serious had occurred,
without quite knowing what it was, and a number of filter -area people
walked into the impact area to find out. These people were immediately
tagged as "sight-seers." During the first fifteen minutes, however,
probably most of the so-called "sight-seers" were bona fide residents
of the impact area returning from work. Some filter -area people were
beginning to step out of their homes to serve as volunteer traffic police.
Some were giving asylum or transportation to injured refugees. Some
were running into the impact area to engage in rescue work. Some

were giving first aid. Some were "rubber -necking" and getting in the
way. Some were looking out of the window and wondering what was
going on. And some were cleaning up around their own homes after
the severe hail and thunder storm which had struck them. A few had
seen the tornado strike; others had not.

The fundamental characteristic of the filter area is that it is that
part of the non-impact region, adjacent to the impact area, where
notification of the disaster having struck is quick and disseminated to
almost everyone, which can provide the initial manpower for rescue
and evacuation, and through which much communication and transporta-
tion must pass.

Beyond the filter area lies the "community aid" area. In contrast
to the filter area, notification to the community aid area is selective:
the specific security agencies (police, fire, hospitals, civil defense,
and Red Cross) are notified at once; they notify and mobilize their
personnel; and the general populace is not "notified" (except by begin-
ning ripples of word-of -mouth and telephone talk) until radio or other
communication media begin to broadcast appeals for blood, or accounts
of the disaster, about an hour after impact. The community-aid area
also gets its notification, not by contact -perception, but through signals
and symbols.

The time of notification of Worcester security agencies is diffi-
cult to establish. Two sources of notification were built into the standard
operating procedure of the agencies themselves: several police cruiser

cars, with two way radio, had "beats" crossing or intersecting the im-
pact area; and fire-alarm boxes were located in the impact and filter
areas. Although the data have not been tracked down, some police
cruisers no doubt radioed information to police headquarters (and
anyone else listening). This is probably the source of the information
received by ladder company #10, who were monitoring a radio and
picked up a statement that a boiler had exploded at the Home Farm,
and were on their way •while a box alarm from the same area was still
coming in. In my opinion, a combination of box alarms and cruiser
calls probably had alerted both fire and police headquarters within five
minutes after initial impact in north-western Worcester; by five min-
utes after terminal impact in eastern Worcester, these headquarters
probably had a picture of the general location and course, but probably
not width, of the impact area.

But box alarms and cruiser calls were not the only sources of
notification. Telephones were still working between at least the
southern fringe area and the center of Worcester, and some calls were
probably coming in. Furthermore, the State Police at Holden (which
was struck about 5:00 PM, at least fifteen minutes before terminal
impact time in Worcester) had gotten on the radio at once and in-
formed State Police Headquarters in Boston. Massachusetts Civil
Defense, with its Headquarters in the same building with the State
Police, called Region 3 (containing Worcester) Headquarters, who

notified the regional director's administrative assistant, some time
during the impact at Worcester (but of course without mentioning Wor-
cester as an impact area). Worcester Civil Defense Headquarters
were empty (the city director was caught in a traffic jam in the filter
area, and the secretary had gone to her home.) By 5: 30, however, the
regional administrative assistant was at Worcester CD Headquarters,
attempting to mobilize local and regional CD units, and to find out what
had happened.

The hospitals, likewise, were gaining their first knowledge of
the disaster during the isolation period. The telephone call to City
Hospital at about 5:20 has been mentioned. About 5:25 a man with a
lacerated scalp walked into the courtyard of Hahneman Hospital. By
5:35 ambulances were arriving at Memorial Hospital. And, of course,
the wail of sirens from police, fire, and ambulances (under police
control) must have alerted the hospitals (as well as much of the rest
of the city) to the fact that something unusual and disastrous had hap-
pened.

Thus, during the isolation period of perhaps an average of fifteen
minutes' duration, notification, inventory, and mobilization procedures
were under way in three functional areas: the filter area (notification
being almost total through the population, by sight and sound); the com-
munity (notification of security units, particularly fire and police de-
partments, by several channels - telephone, box fire alarms, radio

from radio cruisers, and siren sounds); and "outside" security units
(State Police and State and Regional Civil Defense, in particular being
notified by radio and telephone). Police and fire were, during the iso-
lation period, mobilized, dispatched, and penetrating parts of the
impact area. Notification of hospitals and Civil Defense, however,
was slower, it "took" less well, and CD in particular was, through no
negligence of personnel, almost if not completely inactive during the
isolation period, with its director caught in a traffic jam in the filter
area, and its office closed for the day; the office was actually opened
by the assistant to the regional director, who got his word about a tor-
nado in Holden (not Worcester) via a chain of radio and telephone mes-
sages through Boston, and to whose intuitive reaction is owing the fact
that the Worcester CD office doors opened before 5:45 (when the female
secretary-and-telephone -operator came in).

V: RESCUE

EXTRICATION, FIRST AID, REASSURANCE, AND EVACUATION

With the arrival of police and fire department personnel and appar-
atus, the isolation period came to an end, in most parts of the impact
area, by 5:30. What happened after that is considered to constitute a
fifth period of disaster time: the rescue period, lasting through the
night of June 9-10.

Rescue and evacuation operations were conducted mainly by City
of Worcester police, fire department, and public works personnel, in-
cluding both regular employees (off-shift as well as on-shift), auxiliary
firemen and policemen (many of whom were enrolled as Civil Defense
auxiliaries and wore CD armbands, but had been called out by the heads
of the Police and Fire Department Auxiliaries, respectively). These
people worked under loose police department supervision, more or less
methodically going up and down streets freeing trapped persons, giving
minimal first aid and encouragement, and identifying places where
rescue equipment (bulldozers, winches, cranes, etc. , would be needed).
These people constituted a nucleus of relatively well-trained and pur-
poseful people about whom collected various random volunteer assis-
tants: residents of the impact and filter areas, teenagers, "sight-
seers, " et al.

Meanwhile, all available ambulances were assembling at various
points in the filter area and in the fringe impact area. Most of these

ambulances were under the control of the police department; Worcester
hospitals did not control the ambulances. But at least a few non-police-
controlled ambulances also showed up, volunteered by funeral directors,
industrial plants, etc. These ambulances evacuated such people as
were carried or could walk to them; rarely did they penetrate deep
into the impact area. Private cars, trucks, and station wagons, oper-
ated by impact or filter area residents, drove many victims from their
site of injury to the ambulances. Many persons were taken directly to
the hospitals from the impact area in trucks, cars, and station wagons.

The traffic jam in the filter area was, by 5:30, formidable, and
was interfering with the passage of fire, police, and public works
vehicles, and ambulances. Regular police were occupied with rescue
and evacuation procedures, but according to several reports, "spon-
taneous volunteers" took over the job of directing traffic in and around
the impact area. These "spontaneous volunteers" may actually have
been auxiliary CD police. Complicating traffic problems, of course,
were the hundreds of fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters of residents
of the impact area, abandoning their cars in the filter area and running
into the impact area on foot to find and help their families.

Mass communication devices were brought into use by police:
loudspeakers mounted on police vehicles were employed, for example,
to plead with residents not to smoke, in areas where gas mains were
broken. Although most radios in the impact area were out of

commission, a few persons heard (by radio or by rumor) the actual

24
broadcast at 7:00 PM of a tornado warning.

There are conflicting and confusing reports about the extent and
quality of first aid performed in the impact area. Estimates by hospital
personnel are that less than 10 per cent of casualties brought to the
hospital had received first aid. The evacuation procedures made
classification routing, and expediting of casualties almost impossible,
even if there had been medical personnel to perform triage functions in
the impact and filter areas. It would seem that actually there was a
great deal of first aid of a primitive sort administered by victims and
their relatives and neighbors, by police and fire personnel (who were
trained and whose vehicles carried first aid kits), and by a few physi-
cians and nurses who were working (without much in the way of sup-
plies) in the impact area. Wounds were bandaged, some tourniquets
applied, a few fractures splinted, a few persons given unidentified
"injections" (sedatives to mitigate shock?). It is of course almost im-
possible to estimate the effect of what might be called the negative
canons of first aid, involving not doing the wrong thing even though
little therapeutic aid was given. Various formal first aid stations,
with equipment and supplies, doctors, and nurses were set up: one
at a drug store on Burncoat Street in or near the filter area; another
was set up by a hospital in the backyard of one of the homes; another

24. Interview with Mr. Brisette, of WTAG. The use of loudspeakers
to quash or explain rumors is not reported.

was set up at Curtis Apartments; and still another at Municipal Audito-
rium. Generally speaking, however, major injuries did not go to the
first aid stations but were taken directly to the hospitals; indeed, most
of the seriously injured were evacuated in two or two and a half hours -
just as the first aid stations were getting organized. These aid stations
tended, therefore, to care only for minor injuries.

The fire and police departments in the first hour or two of the
rescue period had a major responsibility (particularly the fire depart-
ment) in combating secondary impact. There was material secondary
impact of four major kinds: live wires all over the place; actual fires
in buildings; escaping (and inflammable) cooking and heating gas; glass
and other hazards in the way of pedestrians. The power company sub-
station on Boylston Street turned off the power to much of the impact
area within a minute after impact in that area, but this was not general
knowledge, so the presumed live wire problem had to be met by station-
ing guards, helping or guiding people around or over the wires, and in
some cases chopping sections apart with rubber -handled axes (although
this was risky where sparks might ignite gas). No deaths or injuries
are reported to have occurred as a result of contact with live wires
during the rescue period.

At least nine buildings burned completely or in part; the total
number was probably more. An industrial building on Brook Street, in

25. Powell, interview with Provost, p. 8.

MAP 8: Disaster Space at 6:00 P.M.

total impact

• fringe impact

— • • — • filter area

_.__ community aid (mobilization virtually complete)

i oo a o community aid (mobilization still fragmentary)

j&l

.-.. =-'-ii>.U.

^TT-1. - >, x

-/ VJ

/ ^

/ « O

iWtfSfe?3

WORCESTER

.-^

c> o oo o

Q O C? 0 c> o

the Industrial Area, was gutted, although fire apparatus reached it
during the fire. On Francis Street, four houses in a row were
burned to the ground before fire apparatus could get water to the
scene and stop the fire in the fifth house. Some reports indicate
that if the fire had not been stopped at that point, it would have spread
and turned into a "conflagration, " because it would have moved into an

area of wooden housing where there was no water in the hydrants (at

27
the top of the hill in the Burncoat area). A building in the Brattle

28
Street area burned, although apparatus got there during the fire.

And there were at least three fires which started in the Great Brook
Valley section but were put out quickly by the fire department. While
the story of these (and probably other, not-reported) fires is not given
much space in the various narratives which I have seen, it would seem
that the quickness with which fires were either extinguished or pre-
vented from spreading was an extremely important factor in reducing
casualties and damage below their potential level.

A third Worcester city agency - the Department of Public Works
played an important if somewhat imponderable role. As has been
indicated already, the traffic blockage at the southern boundary of
the impact area was the result of both an accumulation of debris,
particularly boards, wires, and fallen trees, and of passenger

26. Callaway, interview with George Murphy, p. 10.

27. Powell, interview with Johnson, p. 11.

28. Callaway, interview with Sharrocks.

vehicles. Fire equipment literally hacked its way through and over
these roadblocks in some places, but ambulances and lighter vehicles
generally could not follow. Although I do not have much data on this,
it would seem that the Department of Public Works must have quickly
dispatched crews to the area with bulldozers, chain saws, and other
heavy equipment, to clear the roads. This was not, however, report-
edly completed at many points until an hour or an hour and a half after
impact, and then only one-way passages were available. This meant
that the impact-area edge of the filter area was a filter in a physical
sense, tending to block movement in either direction.

Thus within the period from impact to 8:00 PM, all severely in-
jured persons (but not all bodies) had been removed from the impact
area; secondary impact from fire, gas, and live wires had been con-
trolled; one-way traffic lanes had been cleared through the debris and
traffic jam in the filter area; and CD auxiliaries, city, and state police
were on duty at the perimeter, manning traffic blocks and controlling
traffic.

Activity up to 7:00-7:30 was, apparently, chiefly Worcester
activity: that is to say, such resources from other communities as were
in the process of mobilization had not yet arrived. Thus, for example,
one hour and twenty minutes after impact (i. e. , between 6:30 and 7:00)
the only two rescue trucks under the control of Massachusetts State
Civil Defense arrived at the impact area. It is difficult to estimate

0)
-P

Plate 6: EVACUATION FROM GREAT BROOK VALLEY

how important these two rescue trucks were in the total scheme of res-
cue work: apparently they carried the only proper rescue tools which
reached the impact area (Worcester CD reportedly left its rescue tools
in a warehouse, having no means of transporting them to the area and
no rescue workers trained in their use). The trucks were, when they
arrived, manned by three trained men (two drivers and the Chief of
Rescue for Massachusetts); Worcester's Department of Public Works
supplied fifty men. These two trucks and their crews and equipment
worked the next thirty hours until all known casualties were released.
It is not easy to estimate, from the report, how many live casualties
they released; my impression, however, is that almost all live casual-
ties had already been released, and the Rescue Service was chiefly

29
occupied finding the bodies of missing persons.

Thus the period between about 5:30 and 7:30 constitutes a clearly
defined time during which standard community protective agencies
(police, fire, and public works departments personnel) were, with the
assistance of a large number of volunteers who entered through the
filter area, and with the aid of victims themselves (who seem to have
been stimulated to greater activity by the arrival of uniformed outside
aid), able to:

a) neutralize secondary impact (fire, gas leaks, live wires);

29a

b) give extensive, if crude first aid;

29. Knight, 1953.

29a. In the estimation of trained medical personnel, most of this "first
aid" was of negligible value and not worthy of the name.

c) rescue from entrapment all living trapped victims;

d) evacuate to hospitals all seriously injured persons.
Such coordination as these activities achieved was exercised by the
police, but it is evident, from the interviews with victims, police, and
fire department personnel, that very little planning and organizational
work was done. The agencies operating were all highly trained teams
who generally followed a standard operating procedure, modified as
circumstances required; like a military unit comprised of veteran
troops who have had experience working together under fire, they
could function without extensive direction. The untrained thousands

of victims, absent residents who returned to the area after impact,
and volunteers from the filter area were also able, by sheer mass of
manpower, to accomplish a great deal, even if per capita efficiency
was low. Thus a mass of untrained volunteers helped a fire crew to
lay a long hose faster than such a hose had ever (in their experience)
been laid before. Such crews of rescue workers were able to pull out
the less seriously trapped at once, leaving the severe jobs for the
trained teams wi^h equipment. Dozens of vehicles carried casualties
to hospitals, roaring down Burncoat and Main Streets at sixty miles
per hour with horns blowing. While that sort of mass rescue and
evacuation, with professional aid at critical points, no doubt was in-
efficient in many respects, it was perhaps as effective on the whole
as a better organized but slower operation. The Worcester rescue

MAP 9: Disaster Space at 8:00 P.M.

...... total impact

> fringe impact
-»••—• filter area
— ———community aid area (notification and mobilization nearly complete)

id area riot' sEowi . '

mt mobilization [here

1 J HitW4«:S3

i x •» T< --} — >•

• -i*/f*^

WORCESTER

and evacuation can be looked on as a kind of specimen of optimum good
fortune in the face of disaster.

A major aspect of the rescue period (although it continued, in the
hospitals, until the morning of June 11) was the emergency hospital
medical care of injured persons. First aid in the impact area has
already been mentioned. Conceptually, this should be distinguished
from the long-term hospital care of seriously injured persons. The
problem of emergency care is to prevent death or intensification of in-
jury, and involves such procedures as triage, stopping of bleeding,
combating of shock, transfusion of blood or plasma, administration of
tetanus antitoxin, setting of broken bones, cleaning of •wounds, etc.
Subsequent hospital procedures should, from a sociological point of
view (if not necessarily from a medical viewpoint), be regarded as part
of the rehabilitation process.

The hospitals in Worcester, as was indicated earlier, do not own
and dispatch the ambulances, which are under the police department.
Furthermore, the hospitals - although, of course, theoretically re-
lated to Civil Defense - are not explicitly part of the civil defense
organization. Some of them (notably the City Hospital) had disaster
plans, but these were generally in a paper rather than stand-by state
of organization, and the plan (if any) of one hospital was not related to
that of other hospitals. This placed the hospitals as a group out of the

29b. Observers often are surprised, apparently, by this "luck" com-
ponent in the rescue period.

main line of communications among the protective agencies: CD,
police, fire, and Red Cross.

City Hospital - the largest general hospital in Worcester - had a
disaster plan; it, furthermore, received a telephone call or calls about
5:15 or 5:20 (probably the call from the housewife in Great Brook Valley,
and a call from the City Police to the effect that lightning had struck the
Home Farm) which indicated that a number of casualties were going to
arrive. The Superintendent called the police to check on this advice.
But at 5:40, before any disaster plan could be set in operation, City
Hospital received its first casualties, and within minutes it was deluged.
A number of the non-resident medical staff came to the hospital on their
own initiative within about half an hour. Patients arrived in ambulances,
cars, and trucks. Newspapermen swarmed into the building and pre-
empted the telephones (as they were to do at Civil Defense Headquarters).
Two hundred and fifty blood donors crowded into the blood bank. There
were not enough police - not even auxiliary police - to direct jammed
traffic; one policeman on duty there that night died of a coronary throm-
bosis the next day. Families of the injured descended on the hospital
in droves, and the hospital - in spite of considerable resentment - was
forced to exclude relatives. All in all, in the words of the superin-
tendent, during the first half hour there was chaos.

This chaos gradually straightened out during the night. Patients
who could be evacuated were sent home to make space for tornado

M
O

-P
a)

victims: only eighty could be admitted the first night, and about forty
more the next day. In addition to these given beds, about two hundred
and fifty more were treated at the hospital that night. There were in-
sufficient supplies of blood fluids and of tetanus antitoxin: Boston and
New York were telephoned for these. Volunteer doctors and nurses
had to be assigned; triage systems set up; a headquarters set up. After
six hours, things were sufficiently under control for anxious relatives
to enter the hospital. No communications of a dependable sort were
established even by the next day, however, with agencies in the disaster
area.

Similar problems were met at other hospitals. At Hahneman,
close to the impact area, the first indication of a disaster was the sight
of a man with a lacerated scalp, his face covered with blood, who
walked into the yard about 5:25, presumably from nearby Burncoat
area. The director of the hospital, who was at dinner, sent an X-ray
technician down to him. When she looked out of the dining room window
again, "the yard was full of people streaming in all the doors. " There-
after it was the same story as it was at City Hospital: streams of
patients, traffic jams in the driveways, staff assembling spontaneously,
telephone calls for tetanus anti-toxin, blood, and plasma, masses of
volunteer workers and blood donors, newspaper reporters underfoot.
And similar accounts were given by representatives at other Worcester
hospitals, stressing the same general sequence of events: a mass of

injured people suddenly piling up at the doors, without warning (at
Memorial, which received more patients than any other, the only
warning was the sound of sirens on the ambulances and cruisers which
arrived about 5:35); spontaneous mobilization of doctors, nurses, and
volunteers; calling in supplies as stock piles were exhausted; lack of
communication with other protective agencies.

The general impression of the activity of the hospitals during the
emergency night is of a group of isolated institutions, unprepared as to
plan and totally unwarned, suddenly deluged with patients, and there-
after improvising organization as they went along. Because there was
an over -abundance of doctors, nurses, and volunteer workers; because
the community as a whole was intact; and because supplies could be
obtained readily from nearby communities, administrative difficulties
which might have led to deaths or complications of injuries for a num-
ber of patients were overcome by the sheer mass of personnel and
material available.

The load of patients was distributed among the dozen Worcester
hospitals as indicated in the breakdown of hospitalizations:

Memorial Hospital 168

City Ho spital 103

Hahneman Hospital 55

St. Vincent Hospital 27

Fairlawn Hospital 10

County Tuberculosis Sanatorium 8

Doctors Hospital 3

Emergency Hospital 0

Harvard Private Hospital 0

Belmont Hospital 0

State Mental Hospital 0

T74

-p

Thus, of the 374 casualties requiring hospitalization, 326 or 87 per
cent were cared for at three of the eleven hospitals. It would seem
reasonable to suppose that, even though the other eight hospitals may
not have been prepared to cope with a large number of casualties, they
could have given more seriously injured victims care, and thereby
have reduced the burden on the three hospitals which received" the
major deluge of patients.

An extensive report on medical care in the Worcester tornado
has already been prepared, and there is no reason here to recite the
details there presented. That report, however, indicated that the
emergency medical care was deficient at two points: in the handling
of wound shock, and in the handling of open wounds. In the former
case, there was reportedly a low incidence of wound shock observable
in victims in the impact area, but a high incidence at the time of
arrival at the hospital. The reasons for this are not developed: one
might suspect that the helter-skelter evacuation, involving the handling
of many patients by inexperienced persons, their hasty placement (in
many cases) in crowded trucks, station wagons, and private cars,
and their transit to hospitals at extremely high speed, may have
in some cases intensified or accelerated the development of incipient
physiological shock symptoms by "infecting" the patients with a sense
of anxiety and lack of control on the part of the rescuing community.
Furthermore, for some reason very little whole blood, plasma, or

plasma extenders was administered, although this would have been an
appropriate anti-shock treatment. In regard to the handling of open
wounds, many lesions were sutured immediately after cleaning. A
lower incidence of infected wound sites would certainly have been
achieved if delayed closure had been the method followed.

VI: REHABILITATION

THE ATTEMPT TO RESTORE THE STEADY STATE

Each succeeding stage of the disaster involved a wider area.
The impact period involved only the impact area; the isolation period
involved the impact area, a filter area, and selected community insti-
tutions, particularly the fire and police departments; the rescue,
evacuation, and emergency medical care period involved all these,
plus a wider panel of institutions within the community, a large number
of volunteer workers and blood-donors in the community, and institu-
tions outside the community selected for their organizational relation-
ship to Worcester protective units: regional and state CD, State
police, other hospitals and medical supply houses, etc.

The rehabilitation period is the longest, the widest in area of
involvement, and the most complex in interpersonal relationship. It
is certainly the one which obtains the most massive publicity. In the
rehabilitation period, the disaster is a given, and there is a tendency
for attention to focus on the leaders of rehabilitation agencies as the
heroes (or villains) of the whole disaster; the role of victims, and of
the protective agencies who arrive first (police and fire departments)

'it- >» •. 3- -- • ^ • •<* -vL:'Jji

tend to be ignored. Furthermore, rehabilitation agencies involved in
a disaster of the magnitude of Worcester's tend to be concerned (of
necessity) with public relations, and to blanket the media of mass com-
munication; and still further, they are well enough financed to be able

to make extensive records, surveys, self-surveys, etc.

In the case of Worcester, all of this means that while usable data
on the isolation period, for instance, is sparse, there are great quanti-
ties of data on the rehabilitation period. It will not be possible to do
more than outline some of these data in this report; and on many areas
of importance, I shall be unable to do more than to mention the area
and make some brief indication of its significance.

Rehabilitation aims essentially at recreating the conditions that
were; it assumes a prior impact, and a prior emergency period during
which secondary impact has been stopped, but at the conclusion of
which there is a new situation. Rehabilitation aims at restoring per-
sonnel, insofar as possible (and desirable) to their pre -impact physical
and emotional status; and at repairing and rebuilding the damaged ma-
terial culture to its pre -impact status (again, as far as possible and
desirable). Complete recreation of the past is of course impossible:
not all injuries are reversible, not all demolished structures can be
replaced; and for various reasons, it may be decided not to re-create
but to replace with something significantly different.

The rehabilitation procedures are directed at two separate but
closely related ends: the restoration of individual health (emotional
as well as physical), employment, and standard of living; and the
maintenance and restoration of the material culture (furniture, dwell-
ing units, public utilities, public buildings, roads, industrial and

commercial structures, plant cover, etc.). Various instrumentalities
come to be of crucial importance here, and may even become temporary
ends in themselves: financial resources; the organization of participat-
ing institutions and individuals; the housing and feeding of rehabilitation
workers; transportation and communication; and so forth.

The institutions which played particularly significant and dramatic
roles in achieving these ends, after the Worcester tornado, were: the
American Red Cross (local, regional and national organizations); Civil
Defense (local, regional, and national organizations); the National
Guard (181st Regiment); the Salvation Army; various industrial con-
cerns, particularly the Norton Company; church organizations (both
locally and on a wider level); Worcester city welfare, public utility,
housing, police, and other agencies; insurance companies; innumerable
suppliers, contractors, and their labor force; the hospitals and medical
personnel generally; communications agencies (newspapers, radio,
telephone, and telegraph); and various state and federal agencies con-
cerned primarily with legal and financial organization and aid. The
complexity of the inter -relationships of this multitude of institutions
was far beyond the rational understanding of the participants them-
selves, and this report cannot begin to describe empirically and in
detail the development and periodic conditions of these relationships,
nor account in detail for all their activities, whether coordinated or
not. Some of these institutions are still actively involved in rehabilitation

work, a year after impact, and will no doubt continue to be, to a greater
or less degree, for many years to come.

Let us first consider the restoration of the health, employment,
and standard of living of victims from the impact area. The rehabilita-
tion period commences when the seriously injured have been evacuated
and hospitalized; minor injuries have been given first aid at hospitals,
by private physicians, by relations and friends, or by victims them-
selves; and the area of total impact has been almost completely evacu-
ated. Rehabilitation involves two complementary activities: prevention
of any further impact, or deterioration as a result of processes initiated
by primary or secondary impact; and the restoration of health, employ-
ment, and standard of living.

Hospitalization. In regard to health, several organizations and a
multitude of individual agents become involved. Most obvious, in the

Worcester experience, were the hospitals, caring for the major in-

30
juries. Of the approximately 804 patients who entered the hospitals

for aid during the rescue period (some of these, however, probably
came in a day or two after impact), only 374 remained as "permanent"
cases for rehabilitation. The rest received any required follow-up
care in their homes or temporary quarters. There was, however, an

30. Information on hospital care during the Rehabilitation period comes
from three sources: Bakst, et al, 1953; American National Red
Cross, 1952; and interviews with hospital administrators by Miss
Jeannette Rayner.

additional undeterminable number of persons who were major or minor
casualties who never did reach a hospital; these must be added to the
804 on hospital lists, and probably would bring the total number of
casualties in Worcester alone well over the 1000 mark. My guess would
be that the total number of persons requiring some sort of medical
attention or first aid for major or minor injuries would, in Worcester
alone, be 1600 - i. e. , for every injured person who received hospital
care, another was cared for extra-murally. Hospitalization statistics
certainly cannot be used as an adequate count of casualties. It
might be desirable in disaster situations for some uniform procedure
to be set up to make possible an adequate count of casualties treated
by physicians and dentists privately, by trained nurses, police and
fire department personnel, etc. , since these patients must play a con-
siderable, if unrecorded, role in the logistical process.

I do not have statistics on the number of hospitalized Worcester
casualties who remained in Worcester hospitals at successive dates
after impact. One would expect, however, that the number of hospital-
ized casualties plotted by time would form a descending logarithmic
curve, with the bulk of cases being discharged within a week or two,
but with a few cases remaining for months.

31. The statistics of casualties in Bakst, et al, 1953, are based only
on the count of those who were recorded by the American Red Cross
as having received some form of hospital care, although the authors
indicate that not all casualties were treated at hospitals. No doubt all,
or almost all, major injuries were treated at hospitals, however.

In addition to the Worcester hospital staffs, private physicians,
trained nurses, dentists, druggists, etc. , who dispensed most of the
care directly, several auxiliary organizations played important roles.
The Worcester Society for District Nursing mobilized at least twenty
nurses the first night of the disaster, and thereafter its nurses fol-
lowed many patients in their homes or temporary quarters. Civil De-
fense operated an aid station in the Municipal Auditorium. The Amer-
ican Red Cross mobilized the bulk of the necessary extra nursing care:
581 volunteer or Red-Cross -affiliated nurses worked under Red Cross
direction (142 of whom were paid by the Red Cross) for a total of
3, 002 days, up to October, 1953, caring for critically ill hospitalized
patients. These nurses came from no less than thirty-nine Red Cross
chapters!

The cost of this massive application of medical and nursing care
to about sixteen hundred casualties in Worcester was undoubtedly very
large, both in terms of personal services and facilities, and medical
supplies used. But there was almost a competition over who was to
pick up the check! Within a day after impact, some of the local hos-
pitals announced that they would send no hospital bill to any tornado
victim. Then the Governor of Massachusetts was reported to have
announced that the Commonwealth would pay all hospital bills; this
report, however, was denied. The Red Cross then assumed responsi-
bility for paying all tornado hospital bills on a patient -per -diem basis.

All in all, the Red Cross paid for medical and nursing care for 432
families (this, however, includes other towns besides Worcester);
probably in the end the Red Cross paid for the hospital and nursing
care of all, or almost all, seriously injured victims. Up to the end

of 1953, however, it would appear that the ultimate administrative

32
source of funds had not been determined. In any case, the principle

was evidently accepted that the burden of medical expense on the in-
jured victim (who in most cases, if adult, had also suffered from loss
of income, possibly of employment, and property) should be assumed
by the community in one way or another, since individual responsi-
bility would in almost all cases interfere with total rehabilitation of
the impact area and would in many cases have been impossible to
support. In general summary, it can be said that medical rehabilita-
tion was largely defined as a community responsibility, and that re-
habilitation procedures for those who were hospitalized were adminis-
tered on the basis of medical need, not on the basis of individual ability

to pay. What the practices of privately consulted physicians were is

32a
not indicated by my data. But the general definition of the medical

situation was that maximal rehabilitation was a community aim and
responsibility; and that the cost of it should be borne by the Worcester
community, the state and to some extent the whole nation.

32. CF. Bakst, et al, 38-39, and American National Red Cross.

32a. According to later information, private physicians made no charge
for their services.

Welfare services. The impact area was very largely evacuated
by 11:00 PM on the night of the tornado. This meant that there were
about seven or eight thousand homeless persons in Worcester that
night, to be given shelter, food, and in some cases clothing (as well
as medical care for some of the injured). Some of these persons
moved back into the impact area in a day or two; some (particularly
those from the public housing projects and from completely destroyed
homes) did not move back for several months; and some (comparatively
few) never returned, having moved permanently elsewhere.

A multitude of organizations and persons became involved in the
administration of the afore -mentioned welfare services. Notable
among these were: the Central Massachusetts Disaster Relief Com-
mittee, appointed ad hoc to collect voluntary contributions; local,
state, and federal Civil Defense; the American Red Cross; the Salvation
Army; Protestant and Catholic church organizations; municipal and
state welfare organizations; summer camps sponsored by various
groups, the YMCA and YWCA, and the Boys' Club; and various in-
dustrial concerns. Many private persons performed what essentially
were welfare services for relatives and friends; many businessmen in
various ways extended aid in the form of outright gifts, price reduc-
tions, and expediting of shipments; many private individuals gave time,
money, clothing, furniture, etc.

It is notable, first of all, that of the approximately two thousand
Worcester families displaced, very few had to be housed in the emer-
gency shelters. The Red Cross, who took over the administration of
welfare, including shelters, from Civil Defense on June 10, had housed
a total of fifty-seven families (257 people) in dormitories at Worcester
Polytechnic and Clark University up to August 1. On the first night
there were a great many more who received emergency shelter but
there are no records to indicate how many,, By the next day, almost

all evacuees had moved in with relatives or friends, or rented new

quarter So

The Red Cross (local chapter) is said to have provided food for
about six thousand persons (perhaps three thousand of whom were in
Worcester) during the first night. Thereafter relatively few victims
required mass feeding. Red Cross and Civil Defense mobile canteens
and field kitchens functioned in the impact area for weeks, however,
giving food - ranging from coffee -and -doughnuts to full meals - to
rescue, reconstruction and repair workers, and local residents who
had not evacuated,, At the peak of operations, the Red Cross had
twenty mobile and stationary canteens in operation, manned and
equipped by chapters in four or five states.

33. The function of kinship ties in shelter allocation in Worcester is
particularly interesting in view of the commonly stated sociological
assumption that extended family ties are relatively unimportant in
urban life in America. The extended family (consisting of several
related nuclear families) was extremely important in providing shelter
for the victims of the tornado in Worcester.

Several organizations concerned themselves with supplying
victims with clothing, since many persons had lost all clothes except
what they were wearing during impact (and these often were extremely
dirty). Large quantities of both new and used clothing were distributed
by the Red Cross, most of it at the Municipal Auditorium: 200, 000
pounds of used clothing sent in (unsolicited) to the Red Cross in
Worcester from all over the country; $15, 000 worth of new clothing
and 3500 pairs" of new shoes (worth $17, 500) were also given out by the
Red Cross.

The Red Cross also provided free legal aid and advice; its social
workers went over individual and family problems in detail; it operated
a registry of dead, injured, and evacuated persons, and handled in-
quiries concerning these cases, with the particular aid of the Worcester
HAM radio network; it ran a housing reference bureau: all services
which, while transient and difficult to record, certainly played an ex-
tremely important role in the welfare part of the rehabilitation process.

Both Catholic and Protestant churches and church- supported
organizations busied themselves in relief work, particularly in the
matter of preparation, collection, and distribution of food and clothing.
Church welfare policy had not been planned in advance, and there was
often some uncertainty as to whether a given church or church-organiza-
tion was primarily responsible to its own congregation and faith, or to
the community. Churches seem generally to have helped first "their
own, " then others.

A notable incident in the history of welfare activities was the
struggle over trailers. The Federal Civil Defense Administration had
authority to allocate 500 trailers which had been used in re -housing
evacuees of the Kansas -Missouri flood. The Chairman of the Board
of the Worcester Housing Authority (all three of whose projects had
been hit, requiring evacuation of 891 families) announced that Wor-
cester would request that the 500 trailers be brought to Worcester
and installed at Lincoln wood. In spite of the low incidence of mass
care applications (as described above), and the availability of several
hundred vacant dwelling units in the city, the city persisted in its in-
sistence. The Federal Civil Defense Administration and Red Cross
observers indicated that there was no pressing local need for these
trailers. Nevertheless, after the announcement, the Red Cross re-
ceived 665 applications for trailers (chief complaint about temporary
quarters: nervous tension aroused by over-crowded living conditions),
and 425 trailers were finally brought in, set up at Lincolnwood or on
private sites, and rented or provided gratis. This move led the Red
Cross to invest in special kits of furnishings and equipment for trailer
living, with which the trailer residents had to be supplied, at a cost
of $35, 000. It was the feeling of some observers that the pressure
for trailers was generated chiefly by the desire of certain local offi-
cials to demonstrate dramatically, by bringing the trailers into town,
that they were doing their best for the sufferers; on the other hand,

the trailers were used, and their use may have relieved a difficult
housing situation which the fewness of applications for mass shelter
accommodations did not adequately reflect.

At the same time that medical and welfare activities were work-
ing toward, first the maintenance, and second, the partial rehabilita-
tion of individuals affected by the tornado, extensive procedures were
under way toward the physical reconstruction of the area, since only
with this could any real rehabilitation, even on an individual level, be
accomplished. In the fringe impact area, where home -owners and
tenants could repair minor damage, physical rehabilitation began, for
some, almost at the cessation of primary impact, residents getting
out with hammer and nails, brooms and pails, ladders, saws, and
shovels to "clean up the place. " Indeed, even in the area of total
impact, there was a tendency for dazed persons to putter about,
sweeping, mopping, and sorting out belongings from the wreckage,
even though such activities were so trivial in comparison with the
task to be done that their significance lay evidently in their symbolic
meaning rather than their practical utility.

Estimates of physical damage by various agencies were under
way the day after the tornado. It was reported that 50, 000 insurance
claims were anticipated by the various property damage companies
covering policies in the impact area. Insurance, however, did not
nearly cover the total amount of damage, and several other sources

of aid were invoked: compromise settlements between victims and
institutions holding mortgages on their homes; Reconstruction Finance
Corporation loans; and direct grants from the American National Red
Cross to cover the difference between the cost of repair or replacement,
and what could be raised from insurance -payments and loans. I do
not have data on the role played by personal savings in paying for re-
pair and replacement of property. Within a few days many crews of
construction workers were swarming over the impact area (which was
being policed by National Guardsmen, Civil Defense volunteers, and
regular and auxiliary police), demolishing unsafe buildings, replacing
roofs, windows, and walls on damaged-but-repairable structures, and
building new structures from the ground up. Supplies of glass, roof-
ing materials, lumber, nails, hardware, etc. , and the labor to use
them, were brought in from all over New England and adjacent parts
of New York.

The ultimate result, a year later, was an almost complete
physical rehabilitation of the entire area: Norton Company and the
rest of the industrial area completely rebuilt; Assumption College's
main building almost completely rebuilt, with improvements; the two
permanent public housing projects (Curtis Apartments and Great Brook
Valley Homes) completely repaired; the churches rebuilt or repaired
as required; and most of the private homes, stores, etc. , either re-
paired or rebuilt. A few signs of the tornado remained: trailers on

100

the site of Lincolnwood; bare foundations at the Home Farm; a few
empty lots here and there, and a few battered houses, still unrepaired.
An uninformed observer would probably not guess that a tornado had
passed through the area, and might think only that there had evidently
been a lot of new building, in the course of which some old structures
had been demolished and not yet replaced.

The most important single observation about the rehabilitation
period at Worcester, to this writer at least, is that there was a very
large concentration of "therapeutic" agents at the site of the community's
wound. There was, indeed, more of everything available than was ever
brought into play. In terms of hospitals, there were more hospitals
in the town than were ever used. The Red Cross itself mobilized some
thirty physicians and nearly six hundred nurses; these were in addition
to those already mobilized by the community. More clothing was sent
in than was used. Even though only fifty- seven families actually asked
for public assistance in housing (in mass shelters), 425 trailers were
brought into the town. The Red Cross alone supervised about 960
volunteers; it budgeted $1, 020, 000 for relief, and spent $1,016, 162,
assisting 1290 families in one form or another, making 755 cash awards
to families averaging $879 per family. Rehabilitation aid extended to
the point of the Red Cross buying twenty-five new vacuum cleaners (at
one -third cost), and loaning them to 300 families to clean their homes
and furnishings - one cleaner being used, on the average, by only

101

twelve families. Many of the organizational problems of the rehabili-
tation period were not so much problems of competition for scarce
supply, but problems of selection or dovetailing of alternatives offered:
trailers versus existing, if over-crowded, dwelling units, State or
Red Cross financial responsibility for hospital bills, arranging of
respective roles of insurance, loans, and cash grants in rebuilding,
etc. One might say that the area was stacked high with people and
materiel trying to be of service.

This profusion of help should be emphasized for two reasons:
because it can be expected in most natural or accidental disasters in
this country; but it can not be counted on in the event of atomic or
hydrogen disasters as would very likely occur in case of a major war.
It therefore raises the serious question of whether the same kind of
planning (including organization) can apply both to natural -disaster -
preparedness and hydrogen-attack-preparedness.

VII: IRREVERSIBLE CHANGE

THE CITY ACHIEVES A NEW EQUILIBRIUM

A subject of considerable interest, but one on which very little
data is available, is that of the irreversible changes which occurred
in the culture of Worcester as a result of the tornado. As was indicated
in the preceding section, the resources not only of Worcester itself,
but of the state and nation were devoted to a mass rehabilitation pro-
gram aimed essentially at restoring the equilibrium state which ob-
tained before impact. Nevertheless, some systematic changes un-
doubtedly did occur: some of them changes which would have been re-
versed if that had been possible; some of them changes which were
deliberately made, either with a view to using this opportunity to make
improvements which would have been desirable in any case, or with a
view to making better preparation for any future disaster. Conceptu-
ally, "change" in this discussion means change in the system rather
than in individual units. Thus, the replacement of a roof, a wall, or
even a whole building with another which serves the same functions
is not a change in this sense: the system is the same, although one
unit has been substituted for another. Where a new building which
performs a substantially different function replaces an old one, or
where a site is left vacant, or a structure left unrepaired, then one
can speak of a systematic change. The same principle, of course,
applies to individuals: scar tissue over a healed wound does not

104

represent a change, on this level of discourse, but any permanent

34
functional disability, physical or emotional, does.

It is necessary, for practical purposes again, to choose a ter-
minal date for the rehabilitation period, and operationally to define
changes remaining at that date as "irreversible." Let us take one-
year post-impact date as the terminal date of the rehabilitation period,
and therefore consider the period of irreversible change as beginning
then.

The most obvious category of irreversible changes are those
changes which have taken place in individuals as a direct result of the
primary and secondary impact. Thus a certain number of persons
have died - dropped out of the social structure entirely - and required
a corresponding readjustment in many social units.. Bereaved relatives
and friends, and their mutual relationships have undoubtedly changed
in consequence, for while an employer can in most cases replace a
lost worker, a wife and children cannot replace a lost husband and
father, in a functional sense. There can be no real reconstruction of
the status quo ante here. The consequences of these deaths cannot of
course be described properly without a slow and painstaking case by

34. It is apparent that the distinction made above is a rough and
practical rather than a philosophically valid one. If one took absolute
continuity of units as zero change, and argued that any substitution of
units, however trivial, involved some functional difference, however
small, then the distinction I have made becomes one of degree rather
than of kind, and the point of differentiation is recognized as the
threshold of awareness on the part of the observer of a functional
difference which corresponds to a difference in form.

105

case analysis, and probably these individual cases would in their various
features be similar to cases of non-disaster-associated deaths. Their
significance in the category of irreversible change lies not so much in
the unusualness of the individual instances as in the fact that sixty- six
persons died at once, making a slight but noticeable dent in the popula-
tion pyramid for the town.

Similarly obvious cases of irreversible change are permanent in-
juries and disabilities, of various degrees of seriousness. The number
of these probably exceeded one hundred. Here again individual cases
no doubt presented the same features which might have been expected
in the same number of cases of injuries resulting from industrial
accidents, falls, etc. ; it is the mass occurrence which represents the
significant change in the system, since under ordinary circumstances
they would have been distributed over a considerable span of time.

Significant changes in the economic circumstances of affected
families and institutions were no doubt present, in spite of the efforts
of such rehabilitation agencies as insurance companies, the Red Cross,
state and local welfare departments, etc. I have no data whatsoever
on these matters, and can only draw attention to the existence of the
problem.

As indicated in the section on Rehabilitation, physical damage was
largely repaired by April. Several dozen house sites where homes had
been destroyed remained vacant, however, and a few houses had not

106

been repaired. Assumption College's main building had been repaired,
using what was left of the old structure, but the frame convent had not
been replaced. St. Michael's on the Heights had "been completely re-
built on a more lavish scale than before, and the Community Church
had had a new wing constructed, replacing the seriously damaged
frame tower. Norton's plant had been re -roofed. Curtis Apartments
and Great Brook Valley Homes had been repaired, but Lincoln wood
(slated for demolition before the tornado) had been demolished; a few
trailers were still there. Demolished buildings at the Home Farm had
not been replaced.

The tornado was followed by a number of investigations and re-
ports by personnel and consultants to the various operating agencies.
These post-mortem studies of the effectiveness of counter-measure
organizations - Civil Defense, Red Cross, churches, and hospitals in
particular - must have resulted in a great many specific alterations
and "tightening up" in social organization which are not reflected so
much in any physical construction as in disaster plans, inter -agency
agreements, and definitions of authority and responsibility, and on
these matters I have no report. Some physical reconstruction may
already have come about, however; in this connection I recall noticing
that a wider gateway had been made for ambulance traffic at one of the
hospitals, and this may have been a response to the experience on the
night of June 9, 1953, when many of the hospitals reported traffic
jams in ambulance driveways and entrances.

107

It might be speculated, at this point, that in view of the great
concentration on rehabilitation, there may very likely be, after a
disaster of this kind, a sort of "undertow" which works against insti-
tuting changes rationally recognized as prophylactic against future
disasters. In a general atmosphere of striving with considerable success
to reconstruct the past situation, it may be relatively difficult to make
innovations. In other words, where rehabilitation is even moderately
successful, interest may tend to focus on recreating the old culture
rather than on building a less vulnerable culture for the future. And
this tendency could, theoretically, actually produce a sort of fixation
on the pre -disaster state, which would actively inhibit the institution
of changes designed to prevent a similar disaster's happening again.
One is reminded here of the building -the -village -again -on -the- side -
of -the -volcano reaction. Perhaps persons who have managed to get
through the time of maximum stress prefer to repair rather than to
prepare (even if repair makes it impossible to prepare).

VIII: SPECIAL TOPICS

THE DISASTER SYNDROME, THE COUNTER -DISASTER SYNDROME,
THE LENGTH OF THE ISOLATION PERIOD, THE CORNUCOPIA THEORY

.---_. -_ -. . . .

1. The Disaster Syndrome

In my initial field memorandum on the Worcester tornado, and in
the later memorandum on the literature on human behavior in extreme
situations, I drew attention to what appeared to be a very common be-
havioral reaction, which had rather definite stages. I called this the
"disaster syndrome. "

The disaster syndrome is a psychologically determined defensive
reaction pattern. During the first stage, the person displaying it ap-
pears to the observer to be "dazed," "stunned," "apathetic," "passive,"
"immobile," or "aimlessly puttering around." This stage presumably
varies in duration from person to person, depending on circumstances
and individual character, from a few minutes to hours; apparently
severely injured people remain "dazed" longer than the uninjured, al-
though this emotionally dazed condition is no doubt often overlaid by
wound shock. The second stage is one of extreme suggestibility, al-
truism, gratitude for help, and anxiousness to perceive that known per-
sons and places have been preserved; personal loss is minimized,
concern is for the welfare of family and community. This stage may
last for days. In the third stage, there is a mildly euphoric identification

110

with the damaged community, and enthusiastic participation in repair
and rehabilitation enterprises; it sometimes appears to observers as
if a revival of neighborhood spirit has occurred. In the final stage,
the euphoria wears off, and "normally" ambivalent attitudes return,
with the expression of criticism and complaints, and awareness of the
annoyance of the long-term effects of the disaster. The full course of
the syndrome may take several weeks to run.

The frequency of this syndrome, and particularly of its first
stage, is difficult to learn. If one used the data presented in Chapter
3, one would conclude that in Worcester, at about impact -plus -fifteen
minutes (on the average) approximately 33 per cent of uninjured or
slightly injured persons were displaying stage one. Probably the in-
cidence of stage one declines in proportion to time elapsed after impact,
so that the earliest observers would have seen it more commonly than
later observers. The conditions under which this syndrome occurs
seem to be four: an impact which destroys or damages much of the
visible cultural environment and kills or injures, or threatens to kill
or injure, many people; an impact which is unexpected; an impact
which is sudden; and an impact with whose consequences the individual
is not trained to cope. General cultural differences seem not to be a
major determinant, since such a "dazed" reaction is reported from
widely scattered disaster -struck communities. I would speculate that
the more sudden the impact, the more unexpected, the more destructive

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and the less trained the population is to act in its wake, the more severe
and the more widespread will be the "dazed" reaction.

In this section of the report, I shall try to delineate further some
of the characteristics of the syndrome and the conditions under which
it occurs, after presenting certain documentary materials relating to
it.

A psychiatrist at Worcester State Hospital, and a resident of
Curtis Apartments, was in his car during impact. After caring for
himself and his family, he went into the Great Brook Valley and other
areas to give first aid. His description of the isolation period in one
of the worst parts of the total impact area is the best single account,
in my files, of the quality of behavior and emotion during the isolation
period. I should like to quote from it in extenso:

... I got into the rubble and by a foundation was an elderly man, there
were five people sitting there, an elderly man, say sixty-five, with
his wife (I presume) in his arms, her buttocks on the ground and he
was holding up the back part of her and bracing her and crying, Momma,
Momma, Momma and she was obviously maimed, uh, as I got closer
and a young man and a young woman, the young woman had a baby, I
would say fourteen, sixteen, eighteen month old baby. The baby was
a little bit bloody and the woman had a, as though she had a huge super-
ficial abrasion on the side of her face. Made her face look, her
features were intact but entirely red and raw. I looked at the old
woman first and she had a severe compound fracture of the humerus.
You could stick your fist into the wound and see the radial artery and
what I presume was the radial nerve, something white in there, ap-
parently intact. Although I doubt it, I think she was probably just
dazed. She had a head wound, her eyes were closed. She was in-
coherent, uh, uh, moaning. I, uh. . . . and she kept moving her arm,
this was her right arm, and that gave me the creeps, seeing her do
that with this horribly broken arm, but she could move the forearm.
I told her husband to lie her down and she was on a hillside, that whole

112

street is. She was head down on the hill, and I, and she was quite
obese and she didn't lie well on the ground. It worried me that she
wasn't in a comfortable position but then I thought well, if she's gonna
be in shock, it's better that her head is down anyway and then I thought,
well she might start bleeding from her wound but she wasn't. She had
some blood smeared on her but she wasn't bleeding; and I told her
husband, and I told her husband, and I must remark that he was one
of the few people who seemed to be able to function in a purposeful
fashion. Really purposeful. I said, "I'm a doctor, I'll help her, go
and get some blankets. " So he did and I looked at the thing and then
I looked for something to cover the wound with. It was full of little
bits of glass and it was just a wretched mess, and I couldn't find any-
thing. The curtains were all full of dirt, there weren't big enough
pieces of anything to make a tourniquet out of or a bandage; and as I
was searching around in a fairly aimless way for something to deal
with the wound someway with, he came back with the blankets. So I
covered her up, and she was lying on some cardboard or some boards
or something, and I thought well it would be best not to turn her over to
get blankets underneath her because she's not on the ground and is
probably warm enough and she could be made more seriously injured
elsewhere. So, I covered her up. And then I spoke to the young woman,
and she said, "My baby, my baby, is my baby all right. " I looked at
the child, and apparently it was. Seemed a little dazed but it didn't have
any marks of any wounds on it, just was dirty and had some blood, I
think from its mother, on it. ...

We found an old man who was dazed in the grass in his underwear and
stocking feet. I couldn't find a pair of shoes or anything to put on his
feet and there were nails and glass and things all around so he and this
attendant went off down the hill to get into the street at the foot of the
hill to be moved later, at least to get him out of there. I went past his
house and there was a woman lying in the only clear space I saw in
this dead-looking lawn - all the lawns were killed by this instantly,
they looked brown and old. She had a, what I thought was a compound
fracture of the femur, the right femur, but I got a progress report on
her later and it wasn't fractured, she just had a severe laceration as
ifalx6ora2x4 something like that, had gone right through her
leg and passed on. It was a horrible wound, as big as your head, and
she was very upset, but did not complain of pain. Later I found out
she had a fractured pelvis and a fractured, oh, clavicle or ribs or
something like that and was bleeding inside, but she didn't complain
of pain. But I told her I was a doctor, and I had to get right up close
to her and talk right into her ear because she was just moving around
aimlessly looking, searching, out of contact more or less. I took her
face in my hands and I said, "I'm a doctor and I'll try to help you if I

113

can. " And she, the only thing she said was, "Will it come back? I'm
afraid it's going to come back. " And I said, "No, it's not going to
come back. "

I covered up this woman and her husband was standing - let me give
you a picture of it a little - of what the situation was and I can place
these people. I was rather curious. There was a plot of grass, per-
haps fifteen to twenty yards square, and at one side was part of a house,
the floor and pieces of partition, off its foundation but sitting there.
There was a woman, who was the daughter of this wounded woman I
saw who I'd covered up with blankets (it was the only thing I could think
of to do. I was still all alone; the people who had come to help had
gone back, I'd sent them away. That thought had never occurred to
me before). This woman, the young woman, was wandering around in
the grass not doing anything, and would say something to her mother
lying there and then wander away; and I don't remember what she said
but it strikes me that it was inconsequential conversation. Her husband
was standing on the corner of the floor going through something like uh,
some old papers; mind you this was not more than, at the most, the
most generous guess was twenty minutes after the thing hit. I don't
think it was that long but say twenty minutes. He was going through
some papers (my fantasy is that he was humming while going through
these papers; I don't think he actually was, but he was very much un-
concerned) and then it started to rain, and God damn it, all these
people get wet, what could be more miserable? So I said to him, "I
don't have enough covering over your wife, she's badly hurt, get me
some blankets, you must know where there's some in the house."
Well, there was none in the house, it was all outside and he tried to
lift a partition off the bed and get some and he was very reckless about
it because the thing was too damn heavy - nobody could lift it off; but
he kept trying in a very desultory fashion. Closet wall was off and I
just reached in and I said, "I'm going to take some of these coats and
cover her up, " and he said, "Oh, yeah, you go ahead and do that;" and
then he stopped me and said, "Don't take my good coat. " And I had
the feeling that he was like a crazy person, not in good contact or what-
ever words would describe it, childlike; and I said, "All right, I
won't, " and I took what coats I needed anyway and covered her up. . . .

Then George, the attendant, came back and we went up, I told him
probably the best thing to do was get the walking wounded people down
as fast as he could, just get them out of there in a group; and he pro-
ceeded to do that and I presume he did for quite a while, because there
were a lot of people obviously superficially hurt but bad enough to need
medical attention, and he was taking them down because they were just
either sitting or walking around or doing nothing.

114

There was a young man there I would judge twenty-four, and he looked
very business-like and sort of preoccupied and looked at me like, "What
the hell are you doing here? I'm taking care of things;" not exactly
hostile, but self-sufficient. And I said, "I'm a doctor. Is anyone hurt
here?" And he said, "Well, my mother's under the house. " That
house was off the foundation by ten yards and I looked under the house
and this woman, it looked like the whole house was sitting right on her
chest. There was some blood on her mouth and I thought perhaps she
was bleeding from her lungs. She was taking very short breaths and
had very little breathing space. He had gotten an automobile jack and
put it under the house and jacked it up as hard as he could to keep the
house from going any further down, but he couldn't lift the house. Then
I found George and we tried to, we thought perhaps it might teeter, and
we tried to lift up and it wouldn't, and we tried to pry and it wouldn't
pry up with a long lever; and so then I decided perhaps we should look
around for some more automobile jacks and see if several couldn't
lift up the house enough that we could get her out. I didn't want to
crawl under there. Uh, then I heard sirens and I felt relieved because
they were obviously coming to our area and we would have some help.

So, George was back and we decided to get some more automobile jacks
and had a hard time finding them because the cars were, they were
sprung, you know. There were lots of them lying all over, but we
couldn't get 'em out. And in one of those cars was a fellow who be-
haved very curiously. The car was on its side, and he was sitting in
the car on the back seat with his foot out the back door, and the weight
of the car was closing the door, or course, and his foot was outside.
His friend was standing there and called me over when he heard I was
a doctor and wanted to know what could be done. I got in the car. I
had them hold the car because it was teetering and I got in and looked,
and as far as I could tell the leg wasn't broken and he was, the guy was
complaining of no pain. It's curious though that he had a gun beside
him. I didn't notice this but George did, and George had the fantasy
that he was going to shoot himself; uh, I just say this because perhaps
George's observation was more accurate than mine, but as far as - I
don't really remember the fellow except that he seemed to be very
cool, that is, in his talking. He was obviously tense, and quite pale,
but he was very cool. He said, "Don't tip over the damn car. It
doesn't hurt. It throbs a little bit but let's just leave it there. I don't
know what the hell will happen if you tip over the car. " So, I got out
a jack and gave it to somebody, I forget who it was, and said to go
back and put it under that house; and then I crawled underneath the
car, by the trunk, and could see that the foot, and again I didn't think
it, there was no bleeding and I didn't think it was broken, and I looked
at the car and decided we could tip it over if we tipped it over easy.

115

So several of us got together and tipped it over a couple of feet, and
using a pry, himself, a piece of stick, pried open the door enough to
get his foot out. It didn't seem to be broken. But he was very relieved
and then became very - uncool. The climax was over and he was very,
well, "I don't want to do another damn thing, I'm all tired out, I'm
drained of energy, " and things like that he said, and he sat down on a
rock. . . .

. . . on the lawn was a boy about twelve years old and his father was
sitting by him. His head and upper chest were swathed in bath towels
and he had a cut, very deep, extending from the vertex going down
behind the ear and into the neck down into the chest. It was about a
foot deep and laid open a flap almost to the right orbit, and he was
twisting and jerking and I thought perhaps he might have a cord injury
or that he was dying. I lifted up the towels and looked and felt that I
could do no better, wrapped him a little tighter, a little pressure, a
lot of it was necessary; and then I told his father, I looked up on the
hill where there didn't seem too damaged houses and I said, "Your
boy is terribly hurt, but not dead. Go up to the . . . those houses up
there, and get somebody with a car, and put him in a car and get him
to a hospital immediately because he's very seriously hurt; or if you
can find a phone, call somebody; or anything you can think of to do,
up there where these people aren't hurt. " And he left, and I got the
kid's brother, who was sixteen, I would say, to sit by him and watch
him if he started to bleed or anything like that. And then I went around
the corner and here was this kid's father, talking with somebody in a
friendly, neighborly sort of way, reminiscing or something; and I said
to him, "Can you go?" And he looked at me almost breaking down and
said, "No, I just can't leave, I just can't bear it." So I said, "You go
back with your son and I'll, as soon as possible I'll see that somebody
comes for him. "

. „ . As I would encounter people who were not hurt I would say, "Help
me move some of these wounded people out, " and they couldn't. I
would talk with them and explain what I had in mind, and they seemed
to react and respond in a normal way, and then just stand there or
wander away, and nod their heads and not do anything. I wouldn't say
that they were dazed, but they were not functioning; and almost every-
one I met was like that. And as I look back, my own behavior shows
this, although I wasn't aware of it at the time. I was beginning to get
tired. I don't know how long all this took, it seemed like about a half
hour, but it must have been longer than that. Must have been an hour
or more. I went back through the rooms, and helped carry some people
down. I asked a man if anybody was hurt in his house, and he pointed
to his dead wife on the ground and said, "She's hurt, " and I said, "No,

116

I mean somebody I can help, " and he shrugged and said, no, he
guessed not; and then he went back into the rooms of his house to
pick over some things; he seemed to be unmoved by the fact that his
wife was dead. Many people, when told I was a doctor, became very
dependent on me, uh, "What shall we do, where shall we go, " but
then couldn't do it; and other people didn't seem to be able to take in
the fact that I might be able to help them. Wouldn't answer me. I
would say, "Is anyone hurt here?" And they wouldn't answer.

The impression to be gained from the psychiatrist's account
agrees with the estimate, made earlier on the basis of interviews with
victims themselves, that a large number of the persons in the impact
area during the isolation period (i. e. , up to about half an hour after
impact) were incapable of more than minimal (and often inadequate)
care for themselves and their families. Many of these uninjured ap-
parently were unable or unwilling even to walk out of the area. Far
from panic, there was a dissociated state variously alluded to as "daze, "
"shock, " "apathy," in which the normal cognitive structure was severely
limited and effect was limited except for occasional emergences of ir-
rational dependency, hostility, or "hysteria. " One has the feeling
that the dazed, helpless, floundering state represents a partial regres-
sion to a level of behavioral organization in which the individual is
limited in his ability to perceive the actual physical environment and
cannot act coherently with regard to the objects and dangers around
him. We shall discuss later possible determinants of this regression.

The first rescuers from the community aid area found the sur-
vivors in a random movement state, similar to that described above
by the psychiatrist. In the words of a fireman in the Home Farm and
Great Brook Valley area:

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A. ... then we saw the people that were walking around there in a
daze. They didn't know what hit them.

Q. You mean, just walking?

A. Just walking around as if the world had ended, you know. Some
of them, you could see that look in their eyes, didn't know what
hit them, see.

After recognition that help had arrived, however, the dazed and
apathetic stage disappeared, and survivors participated more exten-
sively in rescue, first aid, and evacuation activities. Another fireman
described both the "random movement" and the probably following
"helpful" stage as his fire engine moved through the Burncoat Street
area on a circuitous route toward a fire on Francis Street:

There were quite a few people around, but they weren't in any particular
spot; few here, a few over there. And everyone had, although not
exactly a stunned attitude, a shocked attitude. Some, enough to realize
that there was somebody in that house and needed help to get out.
Others just seemed to, well, watch you go by; probably completely
shocked for the time being. . .

. . . when the officer told us that we were to lay our lines down to the
pumper on lower Francis Street, I don't know where all the help came
from.

. . . that thousand feet of hose went down that street just about as fast as
you could let it run; and there a couple that hollered, "Come on, give
us a hand with the line. " And just as fast as one man could pull it out
of the wagon, it was goin' away from us. It was amazing. In fact,
I've never seen a hose line move quite as fast as that one did. The
people around there were very cooperative in that case, very coopera-
tive. And some of them, I imagine, from that house where we were
trying to get the little girl out, to help us. But there was more on the
line than there was over at the house, so they came from other places
too.

The pastor at St. Michael's on the Heights Episcopalian church,

118

was away from the impact area at impact, and was able to return by
6:30, during the height of the rescue period. By this time, it would
seem, a common modality of behavior was mutual reassurance. Find-
ing his family unhurt (the house was in the fringe impact area), he
donned his cassock and made the rounds of his parishioners' homes
asking, "Are you all right?" "People would cry when I asked. " "I
feel they knew I represented God as well as my own personal concern
for their safety. " "People wanted more than anything else to know
people cared about them. " "If they knew me, they would give me a
hug. They wanted to be reminded that they were all right." "They
wanted comfort rather than physical help. " Another minister who was
also making the rounds of his parish about the same time remarked,
"Almost everyone wanted to go beyond a handshake, wanted an embrace;
wanted to lean on you. Some want to kiss and be kissed in reassurance. "
Both ministers referred to the cooperativeness, politeness, and will-
ingness to help which the people showed to each other in the impact
area during the rescue period.

Among those being evacuated to the hospitals, a similar type
of complaisant, helpful, and grateful attitude was observed. A series
of interviews by Miss Rayner with medical personnel, who were acting
independently at the hospitals during the disaster, convey a remarkable
uniform picture.

A neuro -psychiatrist who saw victims at Memorial Hospital from
5:15 PM to 2:00 AM:

119

A. ... I am not sure whether this was apathy or not; it seemed more
as though these people felt themselves a very small part of some
one great thing. It was not a real apathy. People were extremely
patient - not demanding, and seemed not to be focused on them-
selves. The only outcries of pain were patients with fractures who
had to be transferred. They did respond to pain, a few to the
needle, but not as many as I had expected. I was impressed most
by the quiet. Responses were less than expected. There was real
concern for family and house. I saw one man quietly crying to
himself - he had a fractured leg - when I asked why he was crying,
he told me that his little girl had been killed. A twelve -year old
kid asked to have others cared for first. "

Q. Had they an awareness of the environment?

A. Yes, but the severity of the experience has numbed them down. I
have my own theory, it's related to Selye's work - trauma like
nothing they had ever experienced before.

Q. Did you overhear any of their conversations?

A. Victims by and large were not talking. The medical personnel did
all the talking. My usual technique of kidding and trying to cheer
people didn't work. These people did not respond. Children were
helping (kept them occupied) and very grave - behaving like
"miniature adults," no fooling among themselves.

Mrs. : Much more confusion - more feelings expressed. The

expression was not adequate here in this situation. Most were
oriented, no anger expressed or that type of emotion, character-
ized by "why did it happen to me." There were no complaints.

A. They seemed at once lost in a vast human field. They were not
like a regular accident victim. A day later they were in a dazed
state. There were no complaints - no kidding - no horse -play by
youngsters. It was such a part of such a big thing, there was a
transient loss of individuality and identification with something
else.

Q. Did this appear as withdrawal?

A. It was withdrawal from the self to something bigger than them-
selves. A vast investment of interest in others. No one came
to office without referring to tornado.

120

Mrs. : There were no evidences of selfishness at all. There

seemed a high threshold for pain. Separation seemed to be the
most traumatic to them.

A. A few were confused - dazed and "blank." Mothers were going
through wards at City Hospital looking for children, and acting
"like animals. "

Mrs. : They had a one track mind. The nearest to panic occurred

when others began looking for family. There was an urgency and
desperation.

The Superintendent of St. Vincent's Hospital:
Q. How did the patients look?

A. Stunned, but very cooperative and willing to do whatever doctors
told them.

A nursing adviser and coordinator:

People so shocked they didn't know what had happened. They were
so stunned, their response to local anesthesia -- was even not
where it needed to be used. When you talked to victims they didn't
seem to respond.

. . . Wednesday at 9:30 A. M. the Red Cross took over first aid.
Hospitals were still taking patients. People didn't realize that
they were injured until several hours after the tornado.

In an interview at Memorial Hospital:

Dr. C: There were an extreme number of patients in shock (wound
shock).

Q. Did you notice an element of emotional shock?

Mrs. K: The relations were in a state of apathy; it made them easy
to handle. One grandmother had lost two children; she showed
little response.

Dr. C: One man simply stated that his wife was dead; there was no
emotional expression.

Plate 11: THE DISASTER SYNDROME: BODY CONTACT

121

The Superintendent, Worcester City Hospital:

They were dazed individuals, many unconscious, many cut, 40
per cent fractures of long bones, head and chest injuries. Most
were so dazed they felt no pain. Parents were disturbed over
children.

The Director, Hahnemann Hospital:
Q. How did the patients seem?

A. No hysteria - they were stunned - just came in and were willing
to do as asked.

Q. How did they look?

A. Dirty! Just covered with mud. Gravel was ground into their
scalps and skin.

Q. How did they respond when spoken to?

A. Oddly enough, most were well oriented. It was not until you lis-
tened to their stories that they reacted. They seemed to feel
lucky that they were alive. Great appreciation of what has been
done for them. We got them to homes and friends. All knew of
someone who would take them. Only a few had to have temporary
shelter away from friends and family.

The Superintendent of Worcester State Hospital:

A. I went directly to the housing project (Curtis Apartments) in an

ambulance from Worcester State Hospital. Then went to Memorial
Hospital and worked. In actually only about a half hour later, Dr.
Hicox was there.

My feeling regarding the thing - my interpretation of those actually
in the area, especially those brought to the hospital was quite
surprising. People actually in the area were calmest of all.

Q. What kind of calm?

A. Most of a pathetic, lethargic, somewhat stuporous type. /He told
an anecdote about a woman patient./ It was as though she were
almost in shock, yet still standing. Unemotional, complete flat
effect, nothing seemed to mean much to her. One woman was

122

standing with a piece of cloth in her hand in a ruined house. I
asked her if she were hurt - said no - she refused to leave home.
I found that she was hurt. There were no complaints . . . Some
were completely unresponsive.

At the hospital no one was hysterical, complaining or crying.
They were quiet and stayed put. The people working, nurses,
Red Cross, attendants, volunteers, nurses aides, those groups,
were excited - rushed about here and there, causing commotion
and interference, and emotionally were all upset. Some of the
nurse's aides even would start out for something and never get
back. There were a lot of patients but no complaints. One woman
claimed she was unhurt, that she had no pain; said she had a
muscle strain. A doctor examined her and she had six ribs frac-
tured. Had to demand to examine them; most denied pain. One
man had both hands fractured - this patient disclaimed injury -
said he was waiting for his wife. The doctor set the fractures
and the patient rolled over and went to sleep. He didn't care.
Those in it, it was such a shock, that they were insensitive to
sensation or demands. They were admitted, but most didn't know
quite how they had gotten there.

Q. Were there any really disoriented?

A. Some were partially so. One woman had three kids with her, aged
eight, nine, ten. .She knew and asked me to take care of the chil-
dren. She didn't know she had been hurt, or how she had gotten to
the hospital. She said she was going back to the house to get her
husband and a shoe for one child. She didn't realize that one child
was missing. When I mentioned the missing child, she wanted
then to go to find the child. I had volunteers take her and the
children to the Auditorium. She wasn't upset; she didn't cry; she
was not hysterical, and stuck by the kids. I was astonished at the
general public - wonderful, but helped in a. confused way. Wanted
to help but didn't know how. There was not enough supervision.
No one would stick with you, doctors and nurses were the only
ones who would keep their heads. The volunteers interfered with
functioning of the hospital.

Q. Was there apathy all about?

A. If these people were not shocked they'd be very difficult to handle;
because they were shocked you could handle them easily. It
probably helped them through the immediate post-impact period.
I was most impressed by their lack of pain. No patients (mentally

123

ill) were received at State Hospital as a result of the tornado.
Some of the patients at the hospital lost family (two schizophrenic
patients). They had no reaction to news. You could do anything
to the patients (victims), but could get no response. Those who
came into the areas (sightseers) and those volunteers in hospitals
were shocked by what they saw, but couldn't seem to do anything.

A Civil Defense secretary:
Q. How did people at the Municipal Auditorium aid station look?

A. Right up tight! The elderly were very calm, seemed almost to

enjoy it; the kids played as usual. The men, well one man seemed
to blame himself, "shouldn't have lived there." No emotion, sort
of "deadened. " One girl (from a well-to-do family) just went to
pieces. She didn't seem to care; then when we found her, she
cried.

The medical report by Bakst et al, 1953, included the follow-
ing comment:

During the first night of the disaster emotional reactions requiring
special attention were rare in the hospital; most observers were im-
pressed with the composure and docility of the casualties. Indeed,
some patients were in a state of apathy so extreme that serious in-
juries did not seem to be of concern to them. Even the injured children
were quiet, obedient, and anxious to be helpful.

These observations on victims in the impact area and in the hos-
pitals during the rescue period show a partial continuation of the dazed
state, with relatively flat affect, but an improved capacity for action if
organized community aid personnel (physicians, nurses, firemen,
police, et al. ) were present to give directions. In the presence of
such personnel, with equipment, giving instructions, the victims were
markedly obedient. They also indicated intense gratitude and pleasure
at receiving any help or verbal expressions of concern or interest.
Injured victims seem usually not to have gone into wound shock until

124

after evacuation; but the incidence of wound shock after evacuation was
apparently high. The interplay of physical and emotional trauma in

producing the "disaster syndrome" should be investigated.

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The next stage, the early rehabilitation period, saw a further

development of the syndrome. In this stage, a cardinal feature was

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altruism. The dazed component and the extreme passivity had passed.

In the words of the Bakst report (p. 28), quoting Bishop Wright:

The general impression of observers is that the injured and un-
injured alike were more concerned for others than for themselves
and were so awed by the enormity of the disaster that "each per-
son became a saint for about ten days."
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One Protestant pastor whom I interviewed also testified to the prevalence

of the altruistic component among the residents of his part of the impact

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area up to June 19. This pastor noted that among his parishioners, in
the Burncoat area, there was a real "revival" of community and church
spirit; there was much freer personal contact; manners were more
"natural;" everyone pitched in to help clean up the church property;
old feuds were forgotten, and persons with mental disease symptoma-
tology or histories of hospitalization showed a notable remission of
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symptoms or at least no relapse. Another pastor commented on the

continuous desire victims felt for people to come to them, their anxiety
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and fear at having to go to apply (e. g. , to the Red Cross). Perhaps the
altruistic component has a demanding and dependent side as well as a
generous one.

125

Consolidating the data given above, one can describe the overt
behavior of the disaster syndrome as displaying three stages, corres-
ponding roughly to the isolation, rescue, and early rehabilitation
periods:

1. isolation period: many survivors in the impact area, injured and
uninjured, are "dazed," "apathetic," "stunned;" awareness of the ex-
tent and intensity of destruction, to person, family and community, is
inadequate; efforts at first aid, rescue, and evacuation are perfunctory,
frequently inadequate, and often entirely absent; many people simply
stare, wander aimlessly, "putter about;" expressions of strong emotion
(grief, fear, pain, anger, etc.) are missing or sporadic and inappro-
priate.

2. rescue period: with the arrival of organized protective personnel,
with equipment (firemen, police, Civil Defense, Red Cross, etc.),
survivors remaining in the impact area are able to perform routine
tasks in rescue, fire -fighting, etc., operations, under orders; sur-
vivors evacuated to hospitals, aid stations, and other mass care centers
are also able to follow orders and are extremely docile and obedient,
but they tend to remain "dazed" longer, or, if injured, to go into
severe wound shock; both groups are better oriented than during the
isolation period and can usually tell an interviewer what happened to
them; both groups are extremely grateful for care and concern; both
groups are also self-sacrificing and willing to let others be cared for
first.

3. rehabilitation period (first ten days at least): both injured and un-
injured, in hospitals and in the impact area (but perhaps not to the
same degree if they are no longer receiving evidences of mass care,
as in cases where evacuees have gone to live with relatives) show a
mild euphoria, marked by intense altruism and willingness to work
for the community welfare, readiness to give up old grudges, to ignore
barriers of social distance, and to merge the self in a kind of neighbor-
hood revival spirit, to participate in a strong "we-feeling" shared by
impact -area survivors but not by others; at the same time, in spite of
professions of thankfulness and gratitude, there is also a tendency, in-
consistent with the foregoing, to complain of the coldness and efficiency
of mass care organizations, to become very sensitive over applying for
aid in any form, and to be willing to accept assistance only if it is
brought to them. The three stages of the syndrome might be labelled,
for purposes of reference, the random movement stage, the suggestible

126

stage, and the euphoric stage. (In the earlier description, a fourth
stage - an ambivalent stage - was differentiated from stage three. )

This syndrome describes the behavioral modality of an unknown
proportion of the survivors in the impact area. Some persons - notably
those with pre-defined roles to play in a disaster - do not succumb to
the syndrome, although they probably have tendencies toward it; some
few persons seem to escape it by immediate and direct "hysterical"
outbursts; some, of course, are so severely injured that physiological
trauma governs behavior. (The incidence and nature of the "hysteria"
occasionally but vaguely described is another point worthy of investiga-
tion. ) I would hypothesize that this syndrome will invariably occur
following a disaster characterized by a sudden impact involving physical
destruction and injury affecting a large part of the survivors' visible
community environment, and that cultural differences will not affect
it appreciably.

The determinants of the syndrome are, in my opinion, not primar-
ily physical injuries, physical shock, physical upset by buffeting and
being "pushed around by a lot of air;" they are psychological. This is
evidenced by the fact that the disaster victim can display this syndrome
whether or not he has been injured; it is also evidenced by the fact that
injured disaster victims display the syndrome more frequently than do

35. Descriptions of "typical" behavior at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and
in severely bombed German cities, after earthquakes, and after sudden
floods, while not organized as here, seem to be referring to the essen-
tial elements of the disaster syndrome.

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accident cases (the latter being said usually to be noisier, more demand-
ing, more sensitive to pain, more susceptible to the physician's bedside
manner, etc. ). The precipitating factor in the disaster syndrome
seems to be a perception: the perception that not only the person him-
self, his relatives, and his immediate property (house, car, clothing,
etc. ) have been threatened or injured, but that practically the entire
visible community is in ruins. The sight of a ruined community, with
houses, churches, trees, stores, and everything wrecked, is appar-
ently often consciously or unconsciously interpreted as a destruction
of the whole world. Many persons indeed, actually, were conscious of,
and reported, this perception in interviews, remarking that the thought
had crossed their minds that "this was the end-of the world," "an
atom bomb had dropped, " "the universe had been destroyed, " "the
whole city of Worcester may have been destroyed, " etc. The objects
with which he has identification, and to which his behavior is normally
tuned, have been removed. He has been suddenly shorn of much of the
support and assistance of a culture and a society upon which he depends
and from which he draws sustenance; he has been deprived of the in-
strumentalities by which he has manipulated his environment; he has
been, in effect, castrated, rendered impotent, separated from all
sources of support, and left naked and alone, without a sense of his
4 own identity, in a terrifying wilderness of ruins.

128

The response to the assault of this realization is withdrawal
from perceptual contact with this grim reality and regression to an al-
most infantile level of adaptive behavior characterized by random
movement, relative incapacity to evaluate danger or to institute pro-
tective action, inability to concentrate attention, to remember, or to
\

follow instructions. Such individuals appear to be "dazed," "shocked,"
"stunned, " "apathetic. " Actually they are far from being indifferent;
it is the intensity of the previously-felt anxiety which has prompted
this blocking of perception and this regression.

The remainder of the syndrome represents the gradual resti-
tution of the pre -impact behavioral organization. The individual first
seems to emerge from the cocoon of apathy at the appearance of rescue
personnel from the outside; he becomes very dependent on these people,
identifies with them, is extremely suggestible and obedient, idealizes
the care they give, rejoices in embracing and touching them. This is
the suggestible stage. Following this comes a stage in which there is
a joyful resurgence of identification with the community, a re -accep-
tance of the adult role, although the reassurance of unsolicited aid and
assurance is constantly demanded. Finally, there is the development
of complaints and blame. This is an ambivalent stage. Eventually,
no doubt, most individuals return approximately to their pre -disaster
state, after perhaps two weeks or a month. The various phases of the

129

syndrome, after the initial plummeting regression, appear like a tele-
scoped passage through the familiar stages of behavioral maturation.

The most transparent case-history of the first two stages
of the disaster syndrome is provided by an interview obtained with a
middle-aged small -businessman who weathered the impact in his truck.
After impact, he crawled out of the truck and got back into his place of
business; it was a shambles, but the phone was still intact.

A. ... I came back in here and I called up a friend of mine up at the
Brookside Home and I said, "My old truck blew down - can you
give me a lift?" And he said, "I'm eating my supper and I'll be
down. " So, I thought I was, that this was just something that
happened to me, that was, you know, the old shanties here could
blow down any time, you might feel. I called up this friend of
mine, he says, "Everything gone?" And I says, "The whole works
blew out." He said, "I'll be down after supper." Well, you know,
my damage wasn't as teetotal as what happened to a lot of people
so I don't bother around here (laugh) or anything. I couldn't quite
convince him that something had happened. He didn't get here
until well, past eleven.

Q. Tell me, when was the first time you realized that something was
really going on that was really wrong?

A. I think when I was on my hands and knees.

Q. Didn't you realize when the desk went out in front of you?

A. No, there was so much . . . oh, suppose that you were sitting

here. . . and a tidal wave flowed over you, you were just struck.
I think - that you struggle before you think, you know, you don't
plan anything at all.

Q. So, it was about when you got on your hands and knees that you
really felt something was . . . ?

A. Something was bad wrong here - but I'd never had any, well, I'd
read in the papers and so forth, you know about tornadoes, and
about terrible disasters high winds had caused everywhere else;

130

and I was right here, uh, I lived across the street to here durin1
the hurricane and the hurricane wasn't as terrible as this. And
I was only on the fringe; it's a lot worse, two minutes walk from
here.

A. ... Remember I had my head down and my nose down; I was taking
care of my eggs, and my chicks, and making for the truck - I
felt if I could get in the truck . . . I'm not sure whether I can re-
member it - if part of the roof had gone by then or not. The
noise was, terrific. But on a tar paper roof here in a hail storm
like that the noise is terrific too - what you would expect, a good
steady roar there for a couple of minutes before I got out of here.
So, although a whole lot of people can give you a detailed descrip-
tion of how the storm looked as it approached, and all that - I
think if they were busy - and of course after the storm got here
they would be busy - I can't see how people could see it at all.
I've been over in the Adirondacks, washing dishes when I went
to school, wash dishes up in summer resorts, summers; and
they used to have terrible hail storms over there, cloud bursts
and thunder storms, worse than I've seen around here. And I
do think that perhaps this, as far as I knew it was just a bad
storm.

Q. Then when you got in the cab of the car, were you looking up and
seeing what was going on? Or what was going through your mind
then?

A. No, I looked at uh, 'course through the windshield I could see that
other building there, and there were a lot of stuff in the air; but
the air was thick with stuff. Your vision wasn't far, or anything
like that; the air was actually thick with debris, shingles, dust,
and dirt. Kind of a red powder. Gray or reddish powder. That's
as much as I remember.

Q. And you say when you got on your hands and knees, you felt that
this was something happening just to you? What did you think it
was ?

A. Well, I didn't uh, it was just a bad time (laugh) I was getting out
of it if I could.

Q. Did you have any idea what it might be due to, I mean, did you
have some thoughts about it?

131

A. No, I was a lot scareder afterward when I walked up the street
and saw, you know, uh carrying bodies out and so forth. Until
that time I didn't realize the seriousness of the storm except that
it had blown hard and like I said we are educated here to how much
damage a tornado can do. So, if the wind blows hard here, it
blows a gale, we have a thunder storm; that's all I thought we'd
have here.

Q. You say you didn't feel scared really until . . .

A. I think, you know, after the truck came back up, and still kept

swinging and heaving in the wind, and trembling - I kept, I'd look
up through the windshield and think I shouldn't have got this truck
(laughing) I should have kept the old Dodge I had. The windshield
was too wide on there (laughing) and it looked terribly big to me
with the stuff that was in the air - shingles, roofs, and stuff, like
that swingin' by there, that is, you could see something come by
you, you couldn't actually identify it.

Q. Did you notice any feelings inside yourself at any time during

this?

A. No, (loudly and slowly) I don't think that I noticed any feelings, al-
though people came in afterwards said they thought (chuckling) I
must have been stunned a little bit.

Q. Why did they say that?

A. Oh, they thought I should have got going a little quicker, gettin1 a
hold of the insurance man and stuff like that. 'Course I thought at
the time I was doing my utmost and no one could do any better,
(nearly inaudible).

Q. Looking back on it now what do you think about it?

A. I think I might have been sort of ... riled (low voice) because I,
uh, after the . . . died down, was gone, my phone was working for
ten minutes or so. I called up this fellow and asked him to come
down and give me a lift and straighten this place out down here,
not realizing the extent or the seriousness of the storm. I thought
this was just something that happened to me. I called up my wife
and she said, "Well, there's a couple of trees gone in the back
yard, but that's all. " So I said, "Good for you, sit tight, where' s
Ann?" That's my daughter and she's working over here at Holmes,

132

that's the greenhouse. They were hit bad over there. So, I left
with the truck and I went up to as close as I could get to Holmes,
and I couldn't get up there. There were trees lying down across
the road, so I came back and went down to the drug store and
tried to call Holmes but the wires were down. I came back here
and left the truck and walked over to Holmes. Some way or
another I missed my daughter, she was down here looking for
me. But the people in the house here told her I was all right,
that's as much as I know about the storm.

Q. You say maybe you were a little slowed down, I wonder if some-
thing like this happened again, heaven forbid that happening, but
do you think you could be more efficient in the next one or do you
think you'd do about the same?

A. Yeah, I think that in another one perhaps I could think, you know,
I wasted a lot of time here. I couldn't do anything myself, here.
I could have gone out and given some other people a lift, if I had,
uh, if another wind blew like that I would know that someone pos-
sibly could be hurt or dying on the next street, and I could go help
them. But, uh, and I think I could have even with the truck and
myself.
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Q. But thinking back on what you actually did how do you feel about it?

A. I think I looked after myself. And, of course, the first half hour
or so I thought it was something that only happened to me. Fin-
ally, after an hour or so, my father lives up on Garfield Street;
I walked up to see if he had been home, and if he was, how he
was. But he wasn't home, and I made certain of that, and that
he was safe. But I think in another storm I would know a little
wind can do a whale of a lot of damage; and I'd get right out there.

Q. But you think that not knowing any more than you did, and the

situation being what itis, how do you feel about the way you car-
ried things off?

A. Oh, I think I did all right but maybe I was a little dopey; maybe I
still could have got over there. I didn't know for a couple of days
afterward that these houses up there on the hill were tumbled down
and moved off their foundations. It didn't dawn on me at all. Of
course, at the same time I live in this section and we had no tele-
phone, most of the time no newspaper, and no electric lights and,
of course, no radio and no communication at all with the outside

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133

excepting with people that you talked with. I think that facilities
should be set up in a mobile form that could be moved in, and take
over telephone communication on each street, or something like
that. Because the people iri a devastated area can't call out.
People outside that are looking for them or might help them can't
call in, and do not know the extent of damage or anything. I think
actually that partially was why I didn't get out and do my best to
help out. Because I was perfectly able to do it, perfectly able.

Q. Did nobody, nobody came to help you then until 11:00 o'clock that
night?

A. That's right.

Q. Nobody showed up around here, rescue workers?

A. Of course, first I went over to Frank Adams over here to tell him
my troubles and I see his roof is falling off, and so forth, an'
they're sweeping the street; so I said well, I said I'd better go back
and sweep my place. So I got back and gee, you know I worked my
trade in that building over there, I worked in that building twenty-
one years; and when I got back here it caught fire and was burning.
So I walked back down there but there was nothing I could do. The
fire apparatus had gotten there, there was nothing to do but sit
here and watch that old shebang burn down. Well, it burned, you
know, it gutted it pretty well. This is the building that --

Q. The building that was burning was not your building?

A. No, it wasn't my building; but I figured it was home, once upon a
time, practically.

Q. You say there was something here that blew over?

A. The building that blew up that the car was parked against, which
is that one. I didn't even see it go but it went that way. It was
right here.

Q. Oh! The foundation that's left there was its foundation?

A. That's all, there's nothing but the foundation there now. Took

most of Murphy's heart, I guess.
Q. What?

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134

A. Most of Murphy's heart. There was the foundation - $9, 000. 00
worth of stock . . . which, of course, is nothing if you didn't have
your house blown down and lose some of your family.

Q. But it's still pretty hard.

A. Yes, this was hard-earned, you know? (earnestly). The wood-
working industry never was highly paid. I served a long appren-
ticeship - and during the time that I worked at it, although I liked
the trade, and the work, and the people I worked with, I never was
able to accumulate two cents during that time. Later when old man
Young died, the place was sold out, liquidated, the estate was; I
went to work at Norton Company and, of course, as long as you're
willing and able at the Norton Company you get a good break. So I
was able to lay by enough to start myself, very humbly, in busi-
ness in the old trade. So I hated to see it go. But, like I say, I
am still thinking of myself like when I was (chuckle) crawling out
there. . . .

Q. ... at any time during this thing did you notice any physical
symptoms ?

A. I don't think so.

4 « ^ I \A/ rf

Q. Did you ever notice your heart beating fast, your mouth getting
dry?

A. No, not a bit.

Q. Haven't had any diarrhea or constipation?

A. Not a bit.

Q. No pains in your stomach?

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A. Excepting that I can't sleep.

Q. You can't?

A. No.

Q. What about that?

A. I don't know, of course, it might be these kids (laugh) we have
home the wife is taking care of but I had the, the best night's
sleep I had was four hours.

135

Q. Do you have nightmares?

A. No. I think I dreamt something last night but uh --

Q. What do you dream about?

A. (Pause) Dreams are kind of vague. (Vigorously) you know one

time when I was a kid, I went to kindergarten over here at Carter
and Fairhaven Road. And during recess I climbed the apple tree
and slipped down and got my foot caught in the crotch. And you
know I can remember, well, the kindergarten teacher, Miss
Bancroft came out and unlaced my shoe and yanked my foot out,
after I didn't answer the bell. I suppose at the time I figured
that was about as bad a thing as had happened to me. You know,
last night I dreamt something about Miss Bancroft bringing me
back in school. Something odd like that (Pause). That's about
the --

Q. That's about the worst thing that had ever happened to you up until
then.

A. I think I was terror stricken, you know, when my foot was caught
in the crotch of that tree and I couldn't move. And, I don't know,
I suppose that when she unlaced that shoe and yanked my foot out
of there, and then got my shoe back out of the crotch of that tree,
that was security and safety. But there was something in what I
dreamt last night about Miss Bancroft.

Q. No more than four hours sleep since this thing happened. How do
you feel now?

A. Not too bad. I'm fairly efficient today. I've made out forty-eight
invoices, and, of course, I've got to send, uh, I'm planning out
some kind of a note that I can send to everybody that, all that buy
my stuff here; that if they know that they owe me, would they
please let me know how much, I have no record at all. I've got
5, 700 bucks on the books and I don't know for certain where it is.

Q. (Whistle) You really have to trust people.

A. I've never worked in anything but dungarees all my life, (laugh).
Still it isn't as bad as what I've seen happen around here.

Q. How's your appetite been?

136

A. Well, I didn't eat much supper or any dinner last night, and I had
a cup of coffee and a bun for breakfast yesterday. Uh, today I
didn't eat any breakfast but I ate a good dinner down at Stewart's
diner.

Q. Is today the first time you've eaten well since -

A. Yeah. Yesterday I bought a steak out but I couldn't eat it. It was
the finest looking steak (laugh) I've seen in a long time. And I
don't know why; because I can eat one of those good big steaks on
hand down at Durgan and Parks, down there.

Q. (Laugh) If you can eat one of those you're a good steak eater.
A. That's right and it was a crime to leave that steak.

Q. Right after the thing hit you weren't hungry then - you didn't eat
that flight?

^.
A. Ne>, 1 didn't that night. No. (Pause ten seconds) I didn't, I went

home that night and came back here, then I didn't go home for a
couple of days. When I went home that night, 'course the electric
stove was off and the refrigerator and all. My wife said, "Drink
the milk up, any way, if you can't eat, if you didn't feel .like eat-
ing. " I said I didn't feel like eating. So, I had two glasses of
chocolate milk and came back here.

Q. You stayed here, you didn't go back home?

A. No, I didn't go back home for a couple of days.

Q. You just stayed right here and worked?

A. Yeah. The rubble and debris were tremendous. So I took twenty-
three truck loads of stuff out of here before we could even see
where my material was, where the machinery was and anything
else.

Q. Did you notice anything else, or have you noticed anything else?

A. Only that, you know, I'm kind of a happy cuss most of the time
and I do have . . . well I haven't today but ordinarily I - you know
I've had a couple of hours a day that I feel the worst for myself.
I could just sit back and sympathize with myself, and what had
happened to me. I've had bad things happen to me, maybe not as

137

bad as this, but nothing ever got me down. Because I've been
broke before (unsteady laugh) but it shouldn't bother me too much
(nearly inaudible) there's other things to think of.

Q. You just felt sort of like crying?

A. Yeah.

Q. Have you ever been able to let go and cry about this?

A. No.

Q. You don't do that sort of thing?

A. No. Come pretty near it though, (briskly) Fellow came in here
that I had worked with years ago and he works at Martins now and
I heard that his house was gone. He lives over on Randall Street.
They bought the house years ago, oh, during the depression; bor-
rowed everything they put into it at the time; but since then, of
course, he's come up in the world. But they're tremendous work-
ing people, good people with a tremendous capacity for work and
know how to work and how to do things and spent all their money.
You couldn't duplicate the house over there for $30, 000. And it's
a total ruin; and they may get $6, 000 or $7, 000 out of their wind
damage. Well, that guy came in here and I could feel for him.
That's as close as I came to bawlin1 during the time. But he's got
a lot of guts, and what I heard last was he's going to put a trailer
up on the next lot and after the house is demolished he'll rebuild.
That really takes somethin' because when he does rebuild, now,
there was a house that was free and clear; he's going to assume a
tremendous mortgage, and he isn't a young man any more. It's
all right for someone like, if you figure you have twenty -five or
thirty years of good productive years ahead of you, you can get out
of anything, anything under the sun. But if someone gets along to
be about fifty -five or fifty-eight, something like that, it's a dif-
ferent story. In their lifetime they can't, I can't see how they can
put themselves back where they were.

Q. How old are you now?

A. I'm forty-three.

Q. You've got a little while yet.

138

A. I've got a little while but I have a lot of heavy labored years in back
of me. Really heavy years in back of me. I haven't got the pep I
used to have, the get up and go, and I know I haven't. If I need
something done that's got to have get up and go to it, I hire it done.
And ... I know I'm not as good a man as I used to be.

Q. Tell me, have you noticed any tremulousness, any shakiness?

A. Yes, I have been shaky, yes.

Q. When did you first begin to notice that you were shaky?

A. Oh, a couple days ago. I had a sliver in my hand and I went to take
it out and I couldn't even get a hold of it.

Q. This was about a day or so after?

A. Yes, maybe a couple of days after.

Q. You don't know whether you were shaky before that or not.

A. No, I don't know.

Q. I wonder, one last thing. While you were lying on the cab of that
truck, must have been a pretty rough moment there, wonder what
sort of thoughts were going through your head then, can you remem-
ber?

L 1 1 i •• M v. •; :'i'':iilf. .:: ~>\- ... : •4Sf.ro.'1 . Jol 1 i.-.-r: v ' :,•

A. Well, you know one time I saw a tree had blown down on a car and
you know it crushed the car in a ways, but it didn't go all the way.
If that roof was going to come off and land on that truck, and I had
my choice of being in here or in that truck, I'd rather be on the
floor of that truck. That roof won't come down any further, I
don't think than the . . . top of the dashboard. But I don't think I
thought of that especially.

:. <*.i; -jr/.-.K .,>•„; •• . ?.•-, ii ;.'_v I r:-*»dt'/*I . 'io3B -,i! ?;">"<

Q. You were wishing you had the old car with the narrow windshield?

A. But, I did look up and think, "Oh, how big that windshield is! "

Q. I was wondering if you could remember what thoughts you were
having at the moment that you were lying on the floor and the car
was bumping up and down and tippin1 back.

A. I just wondered if the truck was going to go back over again.

•;' 139

Q. You were remembering these other things then?
A. No.

Q. Worry you?
:!$ >fif" ')'ijCj~ ".' v ''••• • >.' . ..'.;»: y "ioi 97t»/{ fli flOttftt>lAtfflUtE0d

A. No, I don't think I said a prayer (laugh). It might be a sin not to
but I was hanging on.

Q. Far as you know not thinking about anything.

A. That's right, it was just like a drama now that I think of it.
You're doing the best you can for yourself.

Q. None of this "life passing in review" like some drama people tell
about ?

A. Not a bit.

Q. And when it was all over, you thought first of your wife and then
your daughter ?

A. And then I went up to see my father.

Q. Actually, first of yourself.

A. That's right, first of myself, that's right (laugh).

Q. No, that's perfectly understandable.

A. Yeah.

Q. And all this time you never noticed your heart beating faster or
your stomach tightening up or your mouth getting dry?

A. No.

Q. Have you been sweating any more lately?

jav.* ; , . i-:u.iruri o- • '•*-'•' '{ la.uoisanco jjfl^s;a^o.">»i lo -.- -j .'-•-. ,«iy

A. No more than usual - yeah - at night in bed.

Q. At night in bed?

A. I got awfully warm in bed. I wake up from a, at home we have a,
it's a nice cool place where we live. We have a blanket and sheet

140

on the bed. It's been very comfortable when I go to bed, I know
it doesn't get any warmer in the room but I woke up awfully warm;
and I can't go back to sleep.

Q. You say that you think the disaster work should have had some

communication in here for you, I wonder if there is anything else
you can think of that could have been done in the way of making
disaster work more efficient.

A. Communication, that's about - the thing. After all, I sat on my
fat backside here and did nothin1 but look after myself. I could
have gone up the street and helped some people. If I had realized
or could have been informed, even within a half an hour, of the
extent of the seriousness of the storm. See, even within half an
hour I still thought this was just something that had happened to
me. This was my area, here.

In the evolution of the disaster syndrome in this man, who was
uninjured or only slightly injured (he does not mention any injury), one
can see the syndrome from the inside. Although it becomes apparent,
from an analysis of his text, that virtually everything in sight around
him was severely damaged or completely destroyed, he thought for
half an hour that only he and his property had been damaged (thus
blocking out awareness of the community's destruction). At the same
time that he said he thought consciously the storm had affected him

alone, however, he was expressing concern over the welfare of his

..A

family in other parts of the city. It was half an hour before he was

capable of recognizing consciously that this was a community disaster.

.bsd Hi Trvgnt tS - ii6£V • 1&U&U OBriJ S-TtOm r-i'i

Days afterward he is dreaming that nothing has happened to anyone but

him, and that his teacher (mother) is going to come to his rescue
.& *vf,iL $># onaod 3* ,e cnoil ejtr astsw I .jssxf at crstjsw Ylluivr-fc Jog 1
promptly; at the same time, in the dream he is a passive, helpless

141

little boy again. His altruistic identification with other victims
makes him come close to bursting into tears. His behavior seems
inexplicable to himself. And he admits that other people thought he
was "stunned." His memory for personal experience during impact
is very clear, but as far as the record goes, there is partial amnesia
for the first half hour after impact with the exception of recollections
of trying to locate his family. He did not make any effort to engage in
rescue or first aid. During this time, apparently he was quite liter-
ally unaware of the extent of the disaster, in spite of the fact that
buildings were visibly in ruins and one of them on fire all around him;
and he was puttering about aimlessly trying to sweep up twenty-three
truck loads of debris with a broom.

2. The Counter -Disaster Syndrome

Persons in the community outside of the impact area at the
time of impact, but with close emotional ties to persons and places
struck, suffered from a complementary behavioral and emotional
syndrome. If the essential behavioral characteristic in the first
phase of the disaster syndrome was passivity and (after a first aware-
ness of the extent of damage) ignoring of community trauma, and the
responsible mechanism denial and regression, the essential character
istic in the counter -disaster syndrome is over -conscientiousness and
hyper -activity, and the responsible mechanism is a defense against

142

feelings of guilt. Fewer observations have been made on the counter -
disaster syndrome, partly because many of those who are in a posi-
tion to describe it are suffering from it and hence are rather defensive
in the presence of interviewers or readers.

In|:.ts initial stages, the counter -disaster syndrome seems to
be characterized by extremely vigorous activity oriented toward res-
cue, first aid, the making of a contribution of some kind. Certainly
there is nothing pathological in activity aimed at helping victims of a
disaster; the quasi -pathological quality appears when this activity is,
despite the enthusiasm of the helper, relatively low in efficiency and
is unduly "panicky." It is interesting that at Worcester, the only two
groups whom I have seen described as being "panicky" after impact
were absent parents and other relatives returning to the impact area
and finding that it had been devastated in their absence, and hospital
personnel. "Panic" is not technically the proper word to use: "hyper-
active and less rational than normal" might describe it better. Trained

:y*J i
personnel, such as firemen and police and local relief personnel, are

affected, as well as untrained volunteers.

lie-*-* in i •': -, -.)-.'^;- .>r.r. yJj-vi<(6jsq axw ^motfcnva T9Ja*eJj stil lo 98«rir;
The first stage, which prevails chiefly durjng the period of

rescue, evacuation and emergency medical care, is characterized by
extreme anxiety, with a profusion of autonomic symptoms: tachycardia,
shortness of breath, sweating, muscular cramps, etc. The rescue
worker is likely to over-exert himself physically, sometimes to the

143

point of collapse; perhaps some of the exhaustion should be ascribed
to the large quantity of energy consumed in maintaining internal
tension. Far from being passive and dependent, the sufferer is likely
to prefer working on his own, or to take a position of responsibility.
He does a great deal of work, and its value is considerable, but it is
apt to be hastily done and it may require checking and possibly re-
doing by less emotionally involved personnel. An example of this in
Worcester was the suturing of contaminated wounds by doctors on the
night of impact.

There are a few descriptions of the counter -disaster syndrome
in the interviews. One observer, a psychiatrist, commented on a res-
cue worker who got into the Great Brook Valley very early:

. . . He happened to be driving past and got out and went into the wrecked
area that I'm talking about. It was the worst area in terms of destruc-
tion, I don't know about the wind, how fast the wind was blowing or
where the storm was worst, but this was the worst place. I think they
eventually took about fifty dead people out. I didn't think there were
that many. I had no idea. But he was overwhelmed by what he saw,
as I interpret his behavior, and he just ran around over the tops of the
rooms, just running around and I don't know what he thought he was
doing, that is, I don't know what he did. I'm sure he thought he was
doing the best he could but he didn't do anything, at least at that time.

There were also various descriptions of the behavior of returning par-
ents: men running up the hill to their homes, and virtually collapsing
with exhaustion when they got home; a hysterical woman screaming
when a neighbor tried to comfort her; a pastor who spoke of his feeling
of "guilt and frustration" at having been away from home when he was

144

needed. To a minor extent, even trained crews of firemen seem to
have suffered from this syndrome:

... it was very hot, we had rubber goods on anyway, you know all our
rubber goods, and it made it awfully hot; and the way we were running
around there like mad, trying to do what we could . . . Sweating, oh
yes. We were exhausted. We were exhausted, that's what it was,,
Exhaustion was coming on, because we were rushing, trying to do
everything we could, it was really exhaustion that was coming on,
see.

And I myself was panic stricken. I was panic stricken all the time. I
didn't know what had happened to my family.

I believe the captain felt the same way; now, I didn.'t speak to the other
fellows about it, but they probably felt the same way . . . (The captain)
was excil ed. He really was because he ... But he was working like
mad, and directing us here and ordering us there, you know, and he
was carrying out his duty and in the meantime you could see that wor-
ried look on his face.

It should be emphasized that it is the reaction to concern for family,
friends, and community that is referred to as the counter -disaster
syndrome, not the concern itself. Certainly it is not implied that a
sense of responsibility for the welfare of others is undesirable.

Within a few hours, the impact area was swarming with people
who had come in from the community outside to help; hospitals had long
lines of blood donors, and finally had to turn people away; people called
up the Red Cross, Civil Defense, and other agencies, and offered
their services. Much of this urge to help simply resulted in obstruct-
ing the efforts of trained personnel, or required the detailing of such
personnel essentially to combat the counter -disaster syndrome in the
community. Hospital corridors and entrances had to be guarded; road

145

blocks had to be established and traffic police assigned; the National
Guard had to be assigned to keep out "sight seers" (many of whom un-
doubtedly were people anxious to help in some way).

In succeeding days, the continued pressure of the need to demon-
strate conclusively the adequacy of one's charity and conscientiousness
contributed directly (in my opinion, at least) to the peculiar inter -agency
squabbles. These squabbles took two forms: squabbles over the justifica-
tion for "red tape" (e. g. , in Red Cross registration and inquiry practices);
and squabbles over the "possession of the disaster" (to use John Powell's
happy phrase). The former type of squabble tended to divide local agen-
cies and popular opinion from regional, state, or national offices: thus
the National Red Cross was accused of "seeking publicity," was bitterly
criticized for trying to register evacuees, for inquiring into financial
status of those being assisted, and even for expecting candidates for
assistance to apply. And Federal Civil Defense, who requested a hous-
ing survey before ordering five hundred trailers sent in from Missouri,
were similarly attacked for stalling, hearties sness, etc. One suspects
that the relatively unemotional, uninvolved, professional competence
of the outsider simply aggravates guilt feelings of the local action-
people, who see someone who obviously can't be blamed for what hap-
pened, coming in to help and advise (thereby implying the local agencies
aren't able to cope with it themselves). Local personnel tend to feel
threatened by outside experts, anticipating (not too rationally) criticism

146

of their efforts, and loss of opportunity to make good before the world.

Squabbles, however, between local agencies - e.g., between the
Red Cross and Civil Defense over welfare administration - also grow
out of this competition for the privilege of giving help. In situations where
supply is so ample that everyone who wants to help can be given a slice
of the material to distribute, it does not matter, but the consequences
of competition for short supply could be a disastrous waste of manpower,
time, or materials.

The only two cases of severe mental breakdown as a result of
the tornado (in my records, at least) occurred among people who had
shown the counter -disaster syndrome. Traumatic hysterical symptoms
(e. g. , phobias for thunderstorms) were common among victims from
the impact area, but several observers testified that some notoriously
unstable personalities seemed to be undisturbed. This is possibly be-
cause, in the disaster -syndrome, there is minimal conflict, minimal
guilt, simply regression and later restitution. The core of the counter -
disaster syndrome, however, is guilt, and this means conflict, and
this means the possibility of conflict -induced mental breakdown. The
first case was a man who was out of the impact area during the tor-
nado:

A. ... it seemed that everybody was looking for their families. Like
this fellow I know that lived up near us at the project, when I was
taking my wife and kids out I met him. So, he said, "How's my
wife?" And I said, "Well, I don't actually know how she is; your

147

mother-in-law is all right," so it was an assumption that they were
both all right. So, he run like hell up to the project. Well, his
wife called up my wife; but he's in Memorial Hospital with a nervous
breakdown (laughing). She says, "The son of a bitch, I went through
the whole tornado, he wasn't there, I'm up here with three kids;
and he's in the hospital, with a nervous breakdown!"

The other case was a woman hospitalized five or six days after impact.
The year before impact, her house had been hit by lightning. Her hus-
band had been very active during the tornado rescue period; she herself
was ashamed of her timidity,

A. ... And so, as I say, there's nothing I really did. I mean, the

whole business - it's just ... I think the fact that I am here is just
because I've been sickly. He was out on the, on the road heading
Red Cross units, gathering the ambulances and getting tractors to
start and clear the road and all this business and I was all alone
with my children an' it. , . an1 all the soldiers coming and going,
the policemen and things going around, you know, I couldn't sleep,
I couldn't sleep till he got in the house, an' he didn't get in the
house until three or four o'clock in the morning. So for five
nights neither of us hardly slept a wink. An' then, to top it all,
I thought I would get out of the area and take my car and go down
to Framingham, to Jordan's; it was getting the following week
and this week is Father's day so we have a present in mind down
there that my daughter and I were going to buy. So we got into
the car and managed to get out through the area -- you know you
have to have a pass to get in and out -- and so we got out and got
down on to the turnpike and started down a short ways for . . . All
of a sudden, a car, we have a brand new 1953 Ford, that somehow
started going clank, clank, clank, like that, and then it slowed
down and wouldn't drive very well. I said to my little daughter,
"Joy, something's wrong with this car" and she said, "Oh, Mummy,
it's just because you bought a Ford." So I, er, then all of a sudden
she said, "Mummy, people are looking at this car" and so I thought
I'd better stop. We stopped. We drew up into what we thought was
off the road into a by road, y'know? Turned out to be a lady's
yard and was I glad afterwards because we got out of the car, I
shut the motor off and it was still going. It was smoldering an'
burning like - it wasn't burning; but it was smoldering. I am
telling you, I was so upset that I was almost in tears, I guess,

148

since I went through the tornado. I dashed up to the lady's house,
we practically banged the windows out in trying to get in the
house, and I said, "Lady, will you send for the Fire Department,
my car is on fire." So she says, "Oh, calm down, calm down"
and so I tried to; but anyway, she sent for the Fire Department
and they came out and stood their distance and watched the car.
In the meantime, the State Police came up - we had quite an ex-
perience - the State Police came up and I said, "Did that lady send
for you?" thinking perhaps she had called the State Police instead
of the Fire Department, an' he says, "No, a truck driver down
there told me a car was on fire. " So he came up and he started,
he looked at the hood and he said, "Lady, I just think you're out
of water." I said, "Oh, no, it can't be, it's a brand new car and
I always get water everytime I get gas. It can't be. " Well, he
waited for the Fire Department and they came up and he said,
"I think she's out of water." The unscrewed the thing, which was
so hot it practically burned their fingers doing it, you know, and
that was all that was wrong with it. They put in five gallons of
water. So when they finally fixed it up they said, "I think you can
go on for awhile, to Framingham if you want to. " But I had no
desire to go to Framingham, I wanted to get back home as fast as
I could. So I got home and I just left the car plunk in the driveway
an' I wouldn't touch it again, so we didn't have too much to eat for
supper that night cause I didn't have any (laughing) - I - in fact, I,
I didn't even get supper that night because my husband came home
and I told him all about it, yet I was too scared .to tell him but I
told him, and so he started scolding me for not watching the dial
or something that it shouldn't get hot but I had really felt that it
wasn't my fault, you know, and I felt a little bad about it, so I
started to cry; and I cried and I cried, and then, all of a sudden
everything went black and I landed here, (laugh and sniffle) I
mean they . . . they called, they called the doctor; I mean all I
could remember after that was that he lifted me up and laid me
on the couch, I can remember them laying me on the couch. Then
they said I'd better come here and rest for a few days. So, as they
said, they said it was too close. So they said it was once too
much. They said it was once too much. They came to find out it
wasn't my fault at all, it was the, er, on the thousand-mile check-
up, on the car, they hadn't bolted down some part of it, or what-
ever it was. My husband was awful mad, he said, "I won't settle
for anything less than a new engine in that car. " But they said
the car wasn't damaged, I thought so but it wasn't harmed. But
that was just the climax which landed me up here.

149

Q. Well, I think your story is most helpful to us because you're a
person who was not hit directly by the tornado but it shows the
emotional impact even when there wasn't a physical impact on
people, you see,

A. That's what the doctor said. I just talked to him today. And he
said, "I was telling him cause I feel like such a sissy, that the
people that were hit just a little bit were lucky because they were
taken to the hospital right off and that emotional upset was subdued
whereas mine has been building up for five or six days.

Q. Until something just had to come along and in a way in which you
felt guilty about, just some little thing, and it was just too much
for you to take. Under ordinary circumstances you could ride it.

A. That's right, under ordinary circumstances I would ... it would
have just slid off of me, and I'd have got a little mad about it,
most likely; but I didn't ... I took it differently.

Q. How are you feeling now, Mrs. X?

A. Oh, I'm feeling fine now. Don't know exactly when I'm going to

go home, but I hope it won't be too long. They took some punctures
out of my spine and took some pictures of my head to see why I ...
why I blacked out, I guess, and if there was anything wrong, but
there wasn't, it was just an emotional upset.

A. . . .just a year before that we'd had a tree that well, it hit the

house, the aerial on the house, and went down through the drain
pipe and out through the septic tank and hit the - blew a big hole
in the back yard, and hit a tree. I got excited when I knew the
storm was coming, so I made my nephew go up and get her and
bring her home, much against his will; he said he had a lot of ...

Q. You knew a storm was coming?

A. I thought it was a thunder storm because the radio said it was

going to be a bad thunder storm. So, and you could see it was so
black over there. So I had him go up and get her, and he was so
provoked, he said he had a lot of letters to write and get out in the
mail before the storm broke, but I made him go, and I'll bet that
he's glad today. So that we were all at home and all together when
it happened. And we ... sometimes I wonder if we'd been right
plunk in the middle of it, right in that whirling section of it -- we

150

were right on the edge of the whirl, whether we'd have ever made
the cellar soon enough. I wonder that because /^we/were upstairs
and ... er . . . the living room . . . something crashed through the
living room and we were standing near the dining room and the
trees went like this and broke in two right in the living --in the
dining room. So then my husband said . . . before that, I kept
saying to my husband, "Let's go down cellar, let's go down cellar, "
'cause I didn't like the looks of it. And so when that happened,
my husband said, "C'mon let's go to the cellar as fast as we can."
But lots of people they say, you know . . .

Q. So you did get down to the cellar?

A. We did get down to the cellar, yes. A little more went on while
we were down in the cellar, because all this black . . .

Q. What were you saying to one another while you were down in the
cellar? Do you recall?

A. It all happened so quickly, I mean it was all over within five or six
minutes. I mean we just got down cellar and all this black stuff
came at you, and he kept sayin1 "Let's get in this other corner of
the cellar, let's get in this other corner of the cellar." He was
tryin' to think in his mind which corner would be the safest. We
were mostly caught in the middle anyway. But then it was all over
with before you could . . .

Q. Did you talk about what you thought happened to you all ?

A. No. You didn't even have time. The only time we talked at all was
before we went down to the cellar. We were standing in the dining
room before the trees went down, and my husband knows I'm timid
and so I tried to be brave and started talking about somethin1. In
fact the funny part of it was before it started, I was sitting in the
living room and I thought, "Well, I'll just sit still and try to behave
myself. " I didn't want to upset the children too much so I opened
the evening paper and here it was Flint, Michigan you know an' all
the . . . (laughing). But even then that didn't bother me, because
I didn't realize what was happening. Well, then it started getting
a little bit --oh no, then the hail stones came. Ooh! Huge hail
stones big as golf balls - actually as big as golf balls. I never
saw any so big in my life, in fact my son opened the back door and
brought one in. So that made me pop up from the living room. So
we stood there in the dining room watching it, well watching the
hail stones. My husband says, "Y'know this is a funny storm."

151

He watches weather all the time, because he has an airplane and
he flies a lot, so he watches weather all the time, he has a special
radio in his bedroom that indicates weather, but that still didn't
tell him that it was going to be this kind of a storm, or at least
he's not enough educated in the weather to know. But he says
"This is a funny storm, you know it's coming from the north and
the wind is coming from the south. " That's about all he had time
to say cause the trees started going like that and broke off like
sticks. So we went down to the cellar. Then when we came up
it was all over. Well, it had passed us, it must have still been
going on beyond us, when you stop and think, because we saw that
house go down.

The desire to be of assistance and to receive recognition for
having been a competent actor in the emergency is a powerful one, and
if it is not satisfied, disturbed behavior can result (presumably, in pre-
sensitized persons particularly) as resentment and guilt build up. Sur-
vivors from outside the impact area need to "get into the act" and
interference with their efforts to play a satisfying relief role may pre-
cipitate emotional conflicts which reduce efficiency in rescue and relief
operations.

3. The Length of the Isolation Period.

It may be contended that one of the most crucial factors govern-
ing the incidence of casualties and property damage is the length of the
isolation period.

The logic behind this statement is as follows. If two tornadoes
(or any other impact agent) strike two inhabited areas, occupied by the
same number and sorts of people and structures, but if a given quantity
of protective personnel and equipment moves into the impact area after

152

half an hour in the first case, while they move in within five minutes
in the second: there will inevitably be a larger number of casualties
and more property damage in the first case than in the second. In
symbolic form,

D=f(I . P)

where D is the quantity of damage in some category of phenomena (e. g. ,
number of deaths), I is the length of the isolation period in hours, P is
the pre -impact quantity of the phenomenon. This relationship should
be valid because within the impact area, during the isolation period
after a sudden impact, a continuous process of secondary impact will
increase damage: fires, exposure, sepsis in wounds, shock, and the
continuation of lethal processes (like bleeding, asphyxiation, etc. ) set
in motion by the primary impact. The chief function of the rescue
force is to terminate secondary impact before it increases casualties
and damage above the amount left by primary impact. Anything which
lengthens the isolation period for an impact area, or a part of an im-
pact area, will thereby increase the incidence of injury or damage. An
added fifteen minutes of isolation in Worcester would certainly have
substantially increased both property damage and casualty lists; one
recalls that the fire engines were barely In time to prevent a major
conflagration in the Greenhill-Burncoat areas (the three -house fire had
almost passed beyond the reach of hose lines from the few still -function-
ing hydrants). If, instead of a warm June evening, it had been windy,

153

subzero weather and night-time, exposure would have been an important
factor, and time here would have been of critical importance. One
would venture to predict that, in the absence of aid from outside the
impact area, damage would increase somewhat as follows:

The reason for the acceleration-point in the isolation period is that
certain types of secondary impact (bleeding, asphyxiation, lethal wound
shock, and fires) should, if unimpeded, combine to produce a second
wave of injuries several minutes after impact. The reason for the
leveling of the curve is that the dazed state will eventually "wear off"
by itself, and after this point an increasing number of victims will be
able to care for themselves, while many of the most serious conse-
quences of secondary impact will already have run their course.

Various factors affect the length of the isolation period at any

154

particular point in an impact area. One of these is the distance from
that point to the edge of the impact area - in other words, the larger
an impact area, the longer the average isolation period for all points
in the impact area. Another factor, of course, is the extent to which
the impact has interfered with communication and transportation. A
third factor is the distance from the edge of the impact area to the pro-
tective units. A fourth is the quickness with which the protective units
are notified; a fifth, the quickness with which they mobilize; a sixth,
the completeness of the reconnaisance and inventorying by the protective
units, both before and after reaching the impact area. The list can ob-
viously be extended to include a great many other factors which affect
the length of time which passes before a given unit of impact area
space is reached by outside aid.

It is evident also that many other things, having no relation to
the length of the isolation period, also affect the amount of damage:
the nature of the impact agent, the kind of structures in the impact
area, composition of the population in the impact area, the efficiency
of protective personnel and equipment, and the quantity of protective
personnel and equipment brought to bear, at any given point, are par-
ticularly important, I have emphasized the time factor in the relation-
ship between the protective agencies and the secondary impact: here

there is, as it were, a race between rescue agencies and secondary

,-ns is ?:• :i/v>q no.tfsi&ai ;sii> "*& ni^nesl arf* J^sIXe Kiui^fci Kjioj-xfiV
impact agents to reach potential targets.

155

4. The "Cornucopia Theory"

The rescue and rehabilitation operations at Worcester were
considered to have been relatively successful. The isolation period
was short, rescue and evacuation was fast, medical care was quickly
made available to all victims requiring it, and the rehabilitation pro-
cedures of every kind were furnished with lavishness. While specific
instances of inefficiency were pointed out, very few instances of fail-
ure could be. The principles of "wave supply" and "mana from heaven, "
pointed out by Rosow, meant that even when efficiency was low, the
sheer mass of services and materiel were able to satisfy needs as they
came up. Comparison might be made with military firepower: a good
marksman with a finely-tooled and sighted rifle may be more efficient,
but a machine gun gets better results in holding down an enemy position
-- provided there is more ammunition available than is needed to
account for each enemy soldier. In disaster operations, when ma-
teriel and personnel are pouring out of a cornucopia, deluging the
impact area, the results in rescue and rehabilitation are almost in-
evitably impressive.

This is what happened at Worcester. The impact area was
blanketed with protective agencies: hundreds of police, firemen,
National Guards, public works people, CD volunteers, and miscellan-
eous helpers invaded it during the rescue period; hospitals had more
blood donors than they could handle; the Red Cross mobilized hundreds

156

of nurses; equipment and supplies of all kinds were funneled into Wor-
cester from all over the northeast, and four hundred twenty -five
trailers came from Missouri. While the results of this sort of pro-
vision are so good that post-mortem studies have little to criticize
except relatively minor matters and little to recommend except more
efficient utilization of what was already available, they take for granted
the fact that the cornucopia principle's successful application at Wor-
cester depended on the fortunate (and not at all inevitable) co-existence
of two conditions: a complete lack of damage to Worcester's own pro-
tective agencies and to those of any other source of regional aid; and
the absence of any competition from anywhere nearer than Ohio for
emergency supplies and personnel.

A glance at the map of the city, showing the path of the tornado
and the location of protective agencies, will show that this impact
could, however, have wiped out or severely crippled most of the
police stations (including ambulances), fire stations, hospitals, Red
Cross and CD headquarters, and government centers, if it had passed
through Worcester on a different course. If it had taken such a course,
also, the number of primary-impact casualties (to say nothing of the
results of secondary impact) would probably have been much greater.
Furthermore, if the tornado had proceeded another thirty miles, into
the Boston area, considerable quantities of supplies, personnel, and
equipment which in reality found their way to Worcester, would
probably have stayed in (or gone in) to Boston.

157

The cornucopia theory thus rests on the two assumptions that
any given disaster will not destroy the cornucopia itself, and that any
given disaster or combination of disasters will be unable to exhaust
the cornucopia before adequate relief and rehabilitation can be pro-
vided. I have the feeling that this theory is widely held if rarely
formally stated. In all probability, these assumptions are valid for
most natural disasters (fires, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurri-
canes, tidal waves, epidemics, etc.). It is a question, however,
whether the assumption does apply to disasters which might be pro-
duced by atomic or hydrogen explosions. In such events, it might well
be that the cornucopia would be itself largely smashed and its supplies
exhausted long before the secondary impact was under control.

Now pointing out the potential inadequacy of the cornucopia
does not imply that there is anything wrong with having a cornucopia.
The questions which I should like to raise, however, are: (1) Does
the faith in the cornucopia, as experienced in natural disasters, pro-
duce a tendency to think in terms of repair rather than prevention?
(2) Does the faith in the cornucopia tend to produce organizations
which are better adapted to excess supply than to inadequate supply?
In other words, there is a basic question whether the type of organiza-
tion and planning which gets results where there is more than enough
of personnel and supply will be most effective when everything is
short.

158

I don't have ready answers to these questions. But it is strik-
ing, in the case of the Worcester tornado --a severe natural disaster,
but minor in comparison with what a military disaster would be -- that
for most rescue and rehabilitation functions, there were several re-
sponsible agencies with overlapping jurisdictions, and usually more
than enough personnel and supplies to go around. Indeed, many people
were kept busy simply acting as organizational traffic policemen, to
keep people and agencies off each other's toes. Everything seemed to
move in an atmosphere of, "There's plenty to go around, and if I run
short, I'll call Joe on the phone and he'll send some over." The cor-
nucopia nourishes a sort of autonomy and duplication of organizations
in the midst of plenty. If Red Cross and Civil Defense dispute over the
supervision of welfare activities, the solution can wait for thirty- six
hours, and finally both can be given some responsibility in this area.
This is fine when supply exceeds necessity. But if there weren't enough
food or clothing, or shelter in the area, and two autonomous agencies
squabbled over what little there was, not only would the utilization of
that little be inefficient, but the personnel of one of the organizations
would be wasting their time while they could be doing something else.

Furthermore (referring to question ]_ !_/ above), a profusion
of rescue and relief agencies seems to be conducive to an atmosphere
of waiting till it happens before doing anything about it. Reams have
been written about the behavior of organizations after the tornado; but

159

only passing attention has been paid to analyzing the factors which
allowed a tornado to march for an hour through central Massachusetts
without any part of the general population ever being warned to take
cover. A combination of radio announcements and telephone calls from
central exchange points could have had perhaps 90 per cent of the popu-
lation in cellars within minutes. Such a warning would have saved
more lives than any conceivable improvement of procedures in the
rescue and rehabilitation phases. In other words, I wonder whether
we ought not to put more stress on "stop it from happening, " even
while we keep "repair and replace" procedures at the highest possible
peak of effectiveness. And this would apply with even greater force
to anticipations of military impacts, following which the "repair and
replace" cornucopia may not be there any more.

October 1954

161

BIBLIOGRAPHY

American National Red Cross. Massachusetts - New Hampshire Tornado
of June 1953: Final Report. Worcester: Disaster Headquarters,
n. d. /1953/. Mimeographed.

American Red Cross. Worcester Tornado News. Worcester: Disaster
Headquarters, 1953. 9 bulletins.

Bakst, H. J. , Berg, R. L. , Foster, F. D. , and Raker, J. W. The
Worcester County Tornado: A Medical Study of the Disaster.
Mimeographed, 1954. 81 pp. This study was sponsored by the
Committee on Disaster Studies.

Bowman, H. L. Physical Damage from Central Massachusetts. Tornado
of June 9, 1953. Washington: United States Atomic Energy Com-
mission, 1953. Mimeographed, photographs. 3pp. text, 18
plates.

Brodsky, C. M. , Muldoon, J. F. , and Herzfeld, R. F. An Exploratory
Study of the Role of Catholic Church Organizations in Disaster.
Washington: Catholic University of America, n. d. /^1953/. Mim-
eographed. 73 pp. This study was sponsored by the Medical
Research and Development Branch, Office of the Surgeon General,
Department of the Army, at the suggestion of the Committee on
Disaster Studies.

Flora, Snowden D. Tornadoes of the United States. Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 1953.

Harold, R. P. "Downtown Worcester Due for Transformation. " Ameri-
can City. 67 (1952): 101.

Knight, Richard C. "Observation of Worcester, Massachusetts, Tor-
nado Disaster." Memorandum to Rescue Division, Federal
Civil Defense Administration. 22 June 1953. 2 pp.

Kranich, Wilmer L. "The Role of the Protestant Churches in the Cen-
tral Massachusetts Tornado, June 9, 1953." Memorandum to
Welfare Division, Federal Civil Defense Administration. 21 June
1953. 5pp.

162

Landstreet, Barent F. "Field Trip - Central Massachusetts Tornado

of June 95 1953." Memorandum to Evacuation Planning Branch,
Federal Civil Defense Administration. 1 July 1953. 15 pp.
This survey was done in cooperation with the Committee on
Disaster Studies.

Morris, F. D. "City That Didn't Cry Uncle. " Colliers, 125(1950):
34-35.

Powell, John W. "Investigation of the Worcester Tornado, June, 1953:
Preliminary Narrative and Impressions. " Memorandum to
Committee on Disaster Studies, National Research Council.
20 July 1953. 16 pp.

, and Rayner, Jeannette. "Progress Notes:

Disaster Investigation. " Contract report, Chemical Corps
Medical Laboratory, Army Chemical Center, 1952.

, Rayner, Jeannette, and Finesinger, Jacob E.

"Responses to Disaster in American Cultural Groups." In
Symposium on Stress (Washington: Army Medical Service
Graduate School, 1953.

f See "Interviews and Field Notes. "

Rayner, Jeannette F. See "Interviews and Field Notes."

Rosow, Irving. Communications in the Worcester Emergency. MS,

1954 (draft of extensive report to Committee on Disaster Studies).

Schultz, P. L. "Tornado Hits Three Worcester Housing Projects."
Journal of Housing, 10 (1953): 223.

' . "Mobilizing for Disaster. " Journal of Housing,

10 (1953): 264.

Wallace, Anthony F. C. "Memorandum on Worcester Disaster Study."
Memorandum for Committee on Disaster Studies, National
Research Council. July, 1953. 6 pp.

Human Behavior in Extreme Situations: A Sur-

vey of the Literature and Suggestions for Further Research.
Washington: Committee on Disaster Studies, 1953. Mimeographed.

163

. See "Interviews and Field Notes."

Worcester City Directory, 1953. Boston: R. L. Polk & Co. , 1953.

"Worcester Plants Pick Themselves Up." Business Week, 20 June
1953, pp. 30-31.

"Worcester Tornado." American City, 68 (1953).

Worcester Telegram and Evening Gazette, 10 June - 18 June 1953.

WTAG (radio station), typescript of tape recordings of "Tornado 1"

and "Tornado 2" (special information broadcasts on the tornado).

165

INTERVIEWS AND FIELD NOTES

During the preparation of the report, several collections of
transcripts of original interviews and questionnaire responses were
made available to the writer.

Maryland, University of, Disaster Research Project (sponsored and
given staff assistance by the Committee on Disaster Studies).

Personnel and friends of the Disaster Research Project, Uni-
versity of Maryland, headed by Dr. John Powell, made a number of
interviews in Worcester. These interviewers (Dr. John Powell, Dr.
Enoch Callaway, and Mrs. Edna Barrabee) had all had considerable
experience with "depth" interviewing in clinical psychiatric situations.
These interviews were relatively unstructured in that the interviewers
allowed the respondent to develop his narrative and associations freely,
but the interviewer guided the interviews as a whole by bringing up and
probing for material on a series of topics about which information was
required. The following interviews were available to the writer:

Interviewed by John W. Powell --

Five firemen and one individual from the fringe impact
area.

Interviewed by Enoch Callaway --

Three individuals, all victims of the tornado, one a
physician.

Interviewed by Mrs. Edna Barrabee --

Twenty -five individuals, twenty-three of whom were hos-
pitalized victims, one individual from community aid area,
and one individual related to a victim.

National Research Council, Committee on Disaster Studies.

The team sent into the field by the Committee on Disaster Studies
made several separate surveys. Available to the writer, from this
group of studies, were transcripts of recorded interviews by Miss
Jeannette Rayner, and of course his own interviews:

166

Interviewed by Jeannette Rayner --

Eighteen individuals, three of whom were hospitalized
victims; the others, persons in official medical positions.

Interviewed by Anthony Wallace --

Six individuals, all occupying community leadership
positions.

HILL

REFERENCE
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