Monson Residents Express Optimism Despite Tornado Destruction

MONSON (CBS) - Stories of survival are emerging in the town of Monson where residents are picking up the pieces of their property and their lives after Wednesday's devastating tornado.

Nathan Schlegel's home is in ruins, a pile of debris and scattered personal belongings on Washington Street.

He barely made it out with his wife and two children at the point of impact.

"The house crumbled around us. If we had made it to the basement, the whole house came down, and we would have been buried," he said.

Instead they huddled near a staircase and listened to the deafening howling of the tornado outside as it passed by.

"We tumbled over, I could feel us rolling. We rolled completely over and crawled out of the rubble," he said.

WBZ-TV's Beth Germano reports 

He was right in the now visible path that cut through the town shearing off treetops, and then disappearing into the valley.

When it was over Faith Esposito's home was also leveled.

"The house is gone, but every little treasure we can find is exactly that today, a treasure," she said.

A telescope and a car seat could be found in the debris. Family members and volunteers, many she didn't even know, were helping her pick through everything else.

"Three quarters of the people I don't, but they're here and they're helping, and I can't thank them enough," she said.

A local church is a gathering place to enlist volunteers, and to find much-needed food as donations pour in. "Everybody's refrigerators are off.

Everything is rotting and disgusting, that's why we're here," said Erin Green.

Street after street is a scene of devastation, piles of wood up and down neighborhoods that once used to be homes. The question for everyone is where to begin, when it seems everything is gone.

"I'll slowly build myself back up to where I'm normal again, I guess," said Daphne Mead looking at the ruins of her home. Utility crews are pouring into the town that will be without power for sometime.

"You can't fight mother nature, she always wins," said resident Norm Hamel.