Tornadoes shape towns’ past and future

In Washington, Mayor Gary Manier said he’s hopeful that most of the residents affected by the tornado will return home, but he knows some will head elsewhere. The majority of Washington’s debris has been hauled off from the more than 1,000 homes that were destroyed or severely damaged. Some residents, the mayor added, are already patching roofs or even rebuilding their houses, and many more plan to start construction come spring.

“They’re anxious to get back in,” Manier said, “and that’s exciting for myself and elected officials to know that they are going to rebuild and they’re excited to get their lives back together.”

Sometime during the first year after Woodward’s tornado, the Rev. Becky Pierson said residents there began to move forward. The local United Methodist pastor was vice chair of an organization that helped recommend how to spend that city’s recovery money and replace what residents lost.

“Between two weeks to 20 days, we had a very clear plan,” Pierson said. “About 200 days later, we said we feel like we’re kind of back together.”

Woodward’s wounds, while still present, are no longer obvious. Driving through the city today, strangers would be more likely to notice the sprawling softball complex or new movie theater than the storm’s relics. Though it will never be exactly the same, Pierson said the town finally eased back into a routine, what she called a “new normal.”

But ask Greensburg’s Dixson when his town reached a “new normal” and he looks perplexed. Sure: Schools reopened, businesses returned, life went on. But a new normal in a place where emotionally scarred survivors still have “tornado moments” every day? Where almost nothing in town looks the way it did May 3, 2007? Not in Greensburg. At least not yet.

“I don’t know if you’ll ever come up to a new normal,” the mayor said. Then he paused. “The new normal,” Dixson continued, “will be a generation that just barely remembers the tornado.”

Article Appeared @http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-tornado-rebuild-plan-met-20140131-69,0,5546474,full.story

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