As residents in Epsom sort through their tree-strewn yards with boggled minds, meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, are trying to make sense of the shocking strength and stubborn resilience of the tornado that sustained a 50-mile-long path through 11 New Hampshire towns on Thursday, July 24.

In Deerfield near the Epsom border, the twister’s power killed 57-year-old Brenda Stevens when her home on Sleepy Hollow Lane, which took the brunt of the tornado’s impact, collapsed just before noon that day.

Stevens was able to save the life of her 3-month-old grandson, whom she watched during the day, by sheltering him with her body before the home’s roof came crashing down.

The winds, in excess of 100 mph at the time, hurled her husband, Harley Stevens, from the small log cabin.

Both Epsom and Deerfield emergency services responded to the home collapse as many of the homes on Sleepy Hollow Lane are right on the border of the two towns.

Epsom was the first crew to arrive, but Stevens was already dead. After hearing the baby crying, crews from Manchester, Concord and Allenstown were called in to help free the baby from the rubble.

The baby suffered only minor injuries in the ordeal. The child was tucked into a little space made by the debris.

Tornadoes not that unusual
The residents of Epsom were grossly unprepared for a tornado to hit, as were the residents in the 10 other towns – Deerfield, Northwood, Pittsfield, Barnstead, Alton, New Durham, Wolfeboro, Ossipee, Effingham and Freedom – which suffered severe damages.

However, according to National Weather Service experts, the weather phenomenon may occur in the state more times than most think, but cannot be confirmed due to a lack of serious damage that can be used as evidence to classify a tornado.

The last tornado to hit the state, according to National Weather Service Meteorologist Tom Hawley, was on May 21, 2006, when a tornado of similar strength to the one that just hit tore across Route 95 near the Hampton toll booths.

“It was also an E-F2, but it was a very, very short damage path,” said Hawley of the 2006 tornado, which was only a tenth of a mile wide and traveled only about 20 yards, he said.

This most recent one had a much larger base, covering almost a third of a mile, and traveled along the ground for about 50 miles, gathering more debris and staying grounded long enough to cause some serious damage.

Hawley said New Hampshire averages about two tornadoes per year with similar strength, but they don’t usually stick to the ground as long as this one did.

In order for tornadoes to occur, Hawley said, there needs to be significant “shearing” in the atmosphere. Shearing is when the wind is blowing one way in the part of the atmosphere closest to the ground and is blowing the completely opposite direction higher up, creating a torque-like effect. Tornadoes also require the clashing together of a cold front and a warm front.

These two phenomenons are found mostly in the Midwest, where the Canadian air swoops in from the North and moist air rises up from the South. The Midwest is also a lot flatter than the Northeast, making it a lot easier for tornadoes to travel long distances.

This time, the conditions were perfect in New Hampshire, Hawley said.

“The conditions were just right for tornadoes to occur. We’re kind of lucky that was the only one that was confirmed,” Hawley said.

The strength of tornadoes is measured on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which uses the damage to structures and trees to determine a twister’s wind speed and intensity.

This one was an EF-2 or “strong” on the Enhanced Fujita scale, which goes up to EF-5, or “devastating.” An EF-2 rated tornado features winds up to 158 mph. Weather experts estimated the winds in this most recent tornado at around 135 mph at its highest points.

Hawley said the National Weather Service sent about half a dozen experts to the state for two days to investigate the tornado’s destruction path before confirming it.

Disaster aid is coming, but town is under strain Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives are surveying the damage in the affected towns now to determine exactly how much the tornado is going to cost homeowners, and whether or not the towns will get state or federal funding for the disaster.

Epsom police and firefighters are just about tapped out, having all spent many extra hours on the job with ever diminishing resources to pay for overtime and fuel.

“It’s been two weeks of hell,” said Police Chief Wayne Preve. “Between lack of sleep and being called out, all my guys are tired trying to pull the shifts because we’re down two guys,” he said, after two officers recently left the Epsom force.

Fire Chief Stewart Yeaton said the town has quieted down now as residents attempt to salvage what is left of their homes and clean up their yards, but added the sour-tasting icing on the cake will be the likely cost overruns in fuel and overtime for all the fire department’s responses.

Epsom is on its fourth default budget in a row after the town voted down the proposed budget in March. The town is now running on 2003-04 budget lines.

Amplifying the problem. Yeaton said, was the suspected arson of an old barn in town, which fire crews responded to on the evening of Monday, July 21. Crews from Epsom and about 20 other towns battled the four-alarm blaze, which lit up a barn on Route 4 for about four hours.

“You put two major events in one week, that’s a lot of hours in one week. There’s only so much we can do,” he said, without overshooting the overtime lines.

Epsom selectmen met with Yeaton, Preve, Emergency Management Director Rick Bilodeau, and other town staff in private to discuss the town’s response to the tornado on Wednesday, July 30.

The meeting had to be cut short so police and fire could respond to a fatal accident involving a motorcycle and a car near the intersection of Dover Road and Route 107.

The meeting, being held behind closed doors, was rescheduled for Wednesday, Aug. 6, said Selectman Vice Chairman Joanne Randall. The incident is first being discussed in private to protect the privacy of Epsom residents who may be included in the discussion in talks about their damaged homes or injuries, Randall said.

Randall said selectmen would release either a redacted form of the minutes from that nonpublic meeting that would black out the names of Epsom residents included in them, or would summarize the discussion at an upcoming meeting to keep the public apprised of what was talked about.

Randall said FEMA representatives have been to town three times already, and are still crunching the numbers on the damages and to decide whether Epsom will get any funding.

“From what I understand, they’re going to combine the damage from Epsom, Deerfield and Northwood for a total to see what the threshold is going to be for FEMA funding,” Randall said, adding Deerfield and Northwood suffered much more damage than Epsom.

Randall said she hopes the town will see, after having the tornado stacked on top of the flooding in the past two years, why they can’t afford in the long run to spend one more year on a default budget.

“There won’t ever be a time where we won’t be able to react to an emergency,” Randall said, adding mutual aid from other towns and the National Guard are always available in times of crisis.