The destruction of Derry (1985 storm)

The destruction of Derry on May 31st, 1985, is not a single event but a cascade of catastrophes, both natural and supernatural, that tear the town apart from the inside out. It begins as a freak storm, an 'extraordinarily disciplined' low-pressure system that dumps torrential rain on the town while the surrounding areas experience only drizzle. The storm is accompanied by hurricane-force winds that gust up to eighty-one miles per hour, tearing the anemometer off the courthouse roof. This meteorological assault is the physical manifestation of It's death throes, a final, violent convulsion as the Losers' Club strikes the killing blow in the sewers below.

The Storm and Its Omens

The storm's first wrong note is struck at 5:00 A.M., when the clock in the steeple of the Grace Baptist Church, a Swiss-made timepiece that had chimed faithfully for nearly ninety years, fails to chime the hour. This silence is a premonition of the chaos to come. The rain begins in earnest, and the wind rises with unnatural speed. By 5:45, a power transformer at the abandoned Tracker Brothers' Truck Depot explodes, electrocuting fireman Calvin Clark when he steps on a live wire. At 6:05, a series of underground explosions rocks the Old Cape neighborhood, causing every toilet to erupt in a geyser of sewage, killing two residents. The Kissing Bridge is struck by lightning and splintered into pieces. The storm's violence is indiscriminate, targeting the town's infrastructure and its people with equal ferocity.

The Collapse of the Standpipe and Downtown

The most dramatic single event is the fall of the Derry Standpipe. At 10:00 A.M., the great white water tower, a landmark that had stood for over a century, begins to lean. Its internal cables snap with twanging sounds, and it crashes down the hill, releasing one and three-quarters million gallons of water. The resulting tidal wave sweeps away Memorial Park, the stone birdbath, and a line of houses on Kansas Street, carrying them into the Barrens. Minutes later, the downtown area itself collapses. The Canal, swollen by the flood and the debris from the Standpipe, backs up and surges over its concrete walls. The street begins to sink, and buildings on both sides of Main Street—the Northeast Bank, The Shoeboat, Bailley's Lunch—sway and crash into the chasm. The Aladdin Theater's marquee falls, and the statue of Paul Bunyan in front of City Center explodes. The destruction is total, leaving a crater where the heart of Derry once stood.

The Mall and the Aftermath

Simultaneously, the Derry Mall, built on the site of the old Kitchener Ironworks, is rocked by a series of explosions. Zale's Jewelry Store is obliterated, and a music box from the blast lands in a fountain, playing a bubbly rendition of the theme from Love Story. A chunk of the Sears roof is torn off and carried away by the wind. The mall is declared a total loss. In the immediate aftermath, the rain stops abruptly at 10:33 A.M., and the wind dies down. The sun emerges, but the town is left in a state of stunned shock. The death toll reaches sixty-seven, with over three hundred injured. In the weeks that follow, the crater continues to grow as more buildings collapse into it. The town's infrastructure is crippled, and a slow exodus begins. The destruction is not just physical; it is the breaking of a cycle. The town that had been a feeding ground for a primordial evil for centuries is now a place of ruin and forgetting, its heart torn out as the Losers' Club finally succeeds in killing It.