1989 — Nov 16, Tornado, East Coldenham Elementary Sch., Newburgh, NY[1] –9-10

–10  Montgomery/Kruse. “The Coldenham Generation,” Times Herald-Record, NY, 2/27/2005.

—  9  NCDC. Storm Events Database. Tornado (F1) New York, Orange Co., 11-16-1989 11:05.

—  9  NWS FO, Philadelphia/Mount Holly. “Historical Weather Facts…,”  10-17-2005.

 

Narrative Information

 

Montgomery/Kruse: “….On Nov. 16, 1989, a tornado jumped out of a storm cloud and knocked a wall onto 120 kids eating lunch in the cafeteria at East Coldenham Elementary School. A nearby insurance agent described what would become New York’s deadliest tornado as a “black, black twisty thing” cutting across Route 17K….Seven kids were killed that day – the day, in the words of one woman, “the sun went away.” Two more died later in hospitals.

 

“Some 1,700 kids were in Valley Central’s five elementary schools that day back in 1989….On That Thursday, Indian summer came head to head with Arctic winter, with Pacific, eastward air smacking into a Canadian, southbound front, creating violent weather throughout the Northeast.
“On the Goethals Bridge, between Staten Island and Elizabeth, N.J., it overturned two tractor-trailers.  In Clifton, N.J., it shattered the windshields of 54 new Toyotas.  Up here, it made the midday sky turn green, then black, as if somebody had flipped a switch.

 

“A member of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Coldenham Fire Department was painting her dining room walls when she looked out the window at Berea Elementary. The flag was starch-stiff with wind.  Meanwhile, in a small home at the corner of 17K and Drury Lane, Bill Pomarico Sr. got up from lunch and started driving toward the school, where his son Billy was in the second grade, because his sister “felt something.”  And a few miles down the road, at Valley Central High School, Darryl Imperati was teaching a government class when he heard what he thought was a low-flying C5A military transport plane heading toward Stewart Airport.

“Folks would talk later about the sideways rain and the whistling wind, but there, in that elementary-school cafeteria, just before 12:30 p.m., third-grader Terry LoFrese was worried about the water coming through the window and the puddle at his feet.  So, he got up and walked to the opposite side of the room to tell a teacher.  When he looked back, he saw the 20-foot wall, made of glass bricks and concrete blocks, sway toward his friends, then snap back up … but only for a second.  “Run!” the principal yelled.  Not everybody did. Not everybody could.

 

“Cherie, with her leg broken, her lungs and kidneys bruised, her pelvis cracked in four places, was wearing her favorite hot-pink Minnie Mouse T-shirt. She was pinned under the metal and the bricks.  So was Erin, who had been hit in the mouth by the end of an airborne table.  Billy Pomarico was stuck, too, his right femur snapped at a 90-degree angle, and before he saw the glove of the firefighter, he reached out and touched the back of a boy named Mark Flanagan.  No response….

 

“Three days later, not 100 yards from the boarded-up hole in the side of the school, a gawking driver from Savannah, Ga., crossed the center line and crashed into a car, killing kindergartner Rosalie Sbordone….” (Montgomery/Kruse. “The Coldenham Generation,” Times Herald-Record, NY, 2/27/2005.)

 

NWS WFO Philadelphia: “Nov 15…1989… Thunderstorms produced severe weather in the Ern U.S. through the morning and afternoon hours. Severe thunderstorms spawned 23 tornadoes, and there were 164 reports of damaging winds. There were 14 tornadoes in NJ, central and Ern NY, and Ern PA, with 122 reports of damaging winds. A tornado at Coldenham, NY killed 9 school children and injured 18 others, and thunderstorm winds gusted to 100 mph at Malvern, PA. Thunderstorms spawned a total of 39 tornadoes E of the Great Plains in 2 days, and there were 499 reports of large hail and damaging winds. (NWS[2]) (SD[3]).” (NWS WFO, Philadelphia/Mount Holly. “Historical Weather Facts…,” 10-17-2005.)

 

Nov 17, Times Herald-Record, Middletown, NY: “Seven schoolchildren were killed yesterday when a tornado tore through a cafeteria wall at East Coldenham Elementary School.  Nineteen others were injured, some seriously, in the second-worst disaster in the history of New York state schools, authorities said.  “It was total disaster. It was hell, it was living hell,” said Assistant Fire Chief Bud Sharp, in charge at the accident for Coldenham Fire Department. “The poor kids were eating lunch and 2 to 4 tons of masonry fell on them.”  All children were accounted for by late afternoon, state police said.

 

“About 120 children – mostly first and second-graders – were eating a lunch of lasagna about 12:30 p.m. when a tornado rolled from the south across Route 17K.  The twister uprooted a large willow tree, churned along the school’s driveway and bore down on the cafeteria, witnesses said. Many of the school’s 254 students heard a high-pitched whistling sound and the walls of the 29-year-old school began to shake.  “I was just sitting there and all of a sudden the wall caved in,” said second-grader Michael Miller Jr., 7, who was eating in the rear of the cafeteria-auditorium.  “Suddenly, the thing just shook and it slammed down on everyone,” said Steven McCarthy, 7, a first-grader who also was in the cafeteria. “Mr. Gregory pushed me into the hall.”

 

“Principal Harvey Gregory, who had been in the cafeteria, shoved scores of other students into the hall. Two maintenance workers and three or four teachers, who had been monitoring the students, raced to the injured and frantically began to pick through the rubble.  “I got in. I tried to get the kids out,” Gregory said. “We started throwing bricks. . . . We were lucky in finding a number of kids alive under the tables.”

 

“Gregory, after visiting anguished parents at St. Luke’s Hospital in Newburgh late yesterday afternoon, said the tornado struck with no warning.  He said shards of glass flew across the cafeteria; seconds later, the entire wall collapsed.  “The tornado came through. The wall collapsed onto the children. A lot of them were hit with flying debris,” said Orange County Fire Coordinator Erich “Mickey” Lachmann….

 

“About 200 state and local police officers, firefighters and ambulance workers converged on the school and began pulling more children from the pile of concrete rubble, bricks and glass.  Many of the dead suffered head injuries and massive internal injuries.  A fleet of 25 ambulances and several fire-rescue vans rushed the dead and injured to four local hospitals. A helicopter flew one student from the school grounds to St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie.  Most of the children injured were sitting at tables along the wall, authorities said. Their injuries ranged from bruises to cuts and broken bones.

 

“There was bedlam outside the school. A steady stream of tearful parents, some of whom were hysterical, ran toward the gaping hole in the school’s south wall for news of the youngsters.  State police ringed the building; flashing lights of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars filled the parking lot.  “I want my little girl. I want my little girl,” screamed one mother, who, in her panic, fought off the emergency workers who were trying to help her….

 

Frank Alessandrini, the state education department’s fire safety coordinator, said he believes a school-building collapse is unprecedented in New York.  He said the last major disaster at a school occurred in 1954, when 15 children died in a furnace fire in a wooden outbuilding of the Cleveland Hill school in Cheektowaga.

 

“As darkness fell, banks of searchlights illuminated the cafeteria as workers attached plywood to the cavernous hole. Firefighters sealed the building at 7:15 p.m.  Then, Valley Central Schools Superintendent Jim Coonan checked the lock on the school’s front door.  “No one could believe it,” he said. ‘It was our neatest school’.” (Times Herald-Record, Middletown NY. “Wall Collapses…School; 7 Children Killed, 11-17-1989)

 

Sources

 

Montgomery, Ben and Michael Kruse. “The Coldenham Generation,” Times Herald-Record, Middletown, NY, 2-27-2005, updated 12-17-2010. Accessed 5-11-2016 at: http://www.recordonline.com/article/20050227/NEWS/302279999/101008/ARCHIVE Also at:  http://archive.recordonline.com/archive/2005/02/27/bmmk300.htm

 

National Climatic Data Center, NOAA. Storm Events Database. Tornado (F1) New York, Orange Co., 11-16-1989 11:05 CST. Accessed 5-11-2016 at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/stormevents/eventdetails.jsp?id=10075515

 

National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, Philadelphia/Mount Holly. “Historical Weather Facts for the Philadelphia/Mt. Holly, NJ Forecast Area.” Mount Holly, NJ:  NWS WFO, 10-17-2005 update. Accessed at: http://www.erh.noaa.gov/phi/hist_phi.html#0311

 

Times Herald-Record, Middletown NY. “Wall Collapses…School; 7 Children Killed, 11-17-1989. Accessed at Newspaperarchive.com

 

 

[1] Seven children died immediately, two in hospitals shortly thereafter, and one by a car three days later, the driver of which was “gawking” at the tornado damage.

[2] The National Weather Summary, issued by the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City MO.

[3] The Storm Data publication, issued monthly by the National Climatic Center in Asheville NC.