The Swellesley Report

More than you really want to know about Wellesley, Mass.

Wellesley students will be feeling the heat on Day 1

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With temperatures on Wednesday expected to be in the 90s with the heat index up to 105 degrees, Wellesley students will be feeling the heat on the first day of school. The National Weather Service has issued an Excessive Heat Warning with unhealthy air quality that is in effect through 9pm Wednesday evening.

The Hardy Elementary School PTO has gotten out ahead of the situation and put out the call for help keeping students and staff cool during the heat wave, which is expected to keep up through Thursday. The group posted on its Facebook page, “We’ve checked in with the office and want to pass on a request: if anyone can loan a fan (box or oscillating) and/or an outdoor sprinkler, please reply…”

The coolest kids in town

In case you’re wondering which students in town will stay the coolest, that would be those who attend Wellesley High School. The school, new in 2012, boasts a pretty involved high-efficiency chilled water plant, along with a geothermal system to keep the building cool. Next up would be Sprague School, which extensively upgraded its mechanical systems in 2002 and has an air conditioning system to keep the building cool.

Wellesley Middle School’s common spaces have central air handling units, and its administrative areas are served by a small air-cooled chiller. PAWs pre-school has it pretty good too, with a central AC unit that serves the nationally accredited early childhood program.

The hottest kids in town

As for the other six schools, all elementary, beating the heat is achieved largely through a cobbled-together system of a few fans here and there and a window AC unit or two in the administrative offices — unless your child has been lucky enough to score a modular classroom. If that’s the case, they’ll revel in refreshing coolness all day long. That’s right, all the modulars have AC. So if you were fretting that the modular unit your student was assigned to was somehow not really part of the school, stop that line of thinking right now. The exterior of those designed-to-be-temporary spaces may be ugly as sin, but like mom always says, it’s the inside that counts. During those hot days at the beginning and tail end of the school year, they’re as cool as the other side of the pillow, and that’s a beautiful thing.

Everyone else, carry on as best you can, cooler weather is in the forecast after Labor Day. Which is when school should start, anyway.

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That’s one cool Wellesley postal worker

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Wellesley USPS, Toni
Photo by Anthony Elzein

 

U.S. Postal Service’s Toni on her rounds through Wellesley. How could she possibly avoid going through a sprinkler on steamy Wednesday in the Manor and Brookdale Avenue area of town?

Thanks to Anthony Elzein for sharing this photo. He writes: “Some run, some hide…. not Toni in this heat…. She springs to the occasion with sprinklers at her feet. She still delivers our mail without fail… who said Wellesley has snail mail!”

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Wellesley goes dark, for a bit

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Some Wellesley businesses and traffic lights went dark for a bit on this hot Monday afternoon due to a power outage.  J.P. Licks and Wasik’s were among businesses affected.

Wellesley Police reported that lights were out on Washington Street between Forest St., and Rte. 9 late this afternoon, but had been restored a short while later. The police said they had notified the Municipal Light Plant.

wellesley power outage
Wasik’s Cheese Shop (Photo via HF)
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Beyond Wellesley: a tornado tears through Hamden, CT — Mrs. Swellesley’s hometown

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I grew up in Hamden, Connecticut known as “The Land of the Sleeping Giant” for its 738-feet tall popular hiking mountain that, from a distance, indeed looks like its namesake. The Sleeping Giant got a rude awakening last week when an EF1 tornado ripped through the northern section of town bringing with it eight minutes of maximum 110mph winds. It wreaked havoc 600 yards wide and 9.5 miles long, leaving a path of uprooted and snapped hardwood and pine trees. The National Weather Service confirmed that it was indeed a tornado, not just a macro or microburst.

There he is, Hamden’s Sleeping Giant Mountain. The State Park is a popular hiking destination. I spent my childhood rock scrambling and picnicking there. My kids have done the same on visits to grandma and grandpa.

Because I’ve got lots of Sandwich Generation stuff going on right now, I make the 4-hour round-trip to the New Haven suburb with increasing regularity these days. I was almost out the door and on my way there the evening of the event when I got a text from my mom’s neighbor. “House is OK but neighborhood is bad. Possible tornado.”

House is OK? I didn’t know it might not have been OK, such was my ignorance. I wasn’t worried about my mom. Her safety had been ensured a few months ago. Instead of cowering in the basement of her home all alone as a natural disaster swirled around her, mom was with caring people in an area that fortunately was not in the tornado’s path.

“Our street fared well,” the neighbor continued, but Quinnipiac University area got hammered. Know two people who had trees come into their house. Like BAD. Road is blocked off, so don’t even bother heading down. Landscape is changed forever.”

That landscape changed forever part sounded ominous. Now I was itching to get there and see for myself. What I saw a couple of days later was eye popping, and I’ve brought pictures back to share with you. I rolled in just as most of the roads were opening up and the town of 60,000, about a third who were directly affected by the storm, were firing up their chainsaws and clearing away the rubble. Quinnipiac University, which was in the direct path of the storm, carried on with its graduation ceremonies just a few days after May 15th event as if nothing had happened. That’s how you know those kids are going to be just fine out there in the world. Not even a tornado can stop them.

A family-friendly path winds up Sleeping Giant Mountain where at the top there is a 4-story stone castle. It was built between 1936 and 1939 by 60 workers through the Works Progress Administration as a Depression-era relief and recovery project. Here’s a view of the tornado from the top of the castle. Photo credit: Hailey Wilson, the girl is an absolute rock star. Look her up on Facebook for some riveting video she took of the tornado.
The severe weather moved fast, leaving a clearly delineated path of destruction. Hundreds of massive trees were uprooted by the 110-mph winds while hundreds others were sheared off leaving them jagged, splintered half-trees.  Photo credit, Joseph Hawley. Drone
The tornado snapped trees like they were toothpicks.
I spent two hours touring the affected area with my Hamden BFFs and saw fallen trees down on dozens of houses. Every street in its 9.5-mile pathway had homes that suffered major damage to roofs, walls, and windows. Photo credit Hamden Historical Society

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