Deundrae Cockrell stepped onto the front porch of his parents’ home on Shady Street, shaking his head sadly as he looked at what was left of the brick pathway and low brick wall that fronts the home.
“My dad is a brick mason,” he said. “He laid the brick path and the brick walls at the front of the property. It was beautiful.”
Now, the pathway is buckled and uneven, dislodged by a large tree that was felled during an EF-3 tornado that ripped through north Columbus early on the Saturday evening of Feb. 23.
Much of the brick that was destroyed has since been hauled away. The home where his parents, Johnny and Ida Cochran, have lived for more than 30 years is in a similar state. Blue tarps hang over the eaves and rooftop of the two-story home, but do little to prevent rain from leaking into the home by the bucket-fulls.
“They still stay here some,” Cockrell said. “They go back and forth between here and my house and my sister’s house. All their stuff is here. It’s packed up, so they’re kind of living out of boxes and suitcases.”
The Cockrells’ home was one of more than 300 homes and businesses damaged or destroyed in the tornado, which killed one person and displaced hundreds of residents in the geographic heart of the city.
Recovery began the next morning, as work crews and private citizens moved through the battered, dazed neighborhoods, offering assistance and encouragement.
Now, a half-year later, there are tangible signs of recovery. At Sim Scott Park along 20th Street North, the fences around the ball fields, the children’s play areas, the pavilion have all been replaced. The dirt work for a new community center is ready for the foundation to be poured. Architectural renderings of the facility, which replaces two separate buildings wiped out by the tornado, are being reviewed. City engineer Kevin Stafford said if all goes perfectly, the center could be completed late this year and certainly by spring.
Across 20th Street, at Hunt Success Academy, efforts to secure and stabilize the school for rebuilding will be completed in about six weeks, said Columbus Municipal School District Superintendent Cherie Labat.
“It’s going to be a slow process,” said Labat, who would not speculate when Hunt would be open again. “We’re working with (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and it’s an historic site. There (is) a lot of red tape. It’s going to take a while.”
Progress in fits and starts
All across the area, the sights of recovery are intermingled with the telltale signs of the work that remains. For every new rooftop that goes up, there is another bearing blue tarps — the universal symbol of a badly damaged roof. Some lots have been cleared, their remnants stacked on piles six or eight feet high near the street awaiting removal. Some have not. Though utilities and streets have long since been restored, the mangled homes stand much as they were in the immediate wake of the storm.
Don Lucas, project manager for Looks Great Services, the company contracted by the city for debris removal, said the final phase of debris removal will begin within the next week or two.
“Most of what’s left is demo stuff,” Lucas said. “We’ll be making our last round of collection. There have been a lot of demos, but it looks like there’s more than probably should be done. But our job is to pick up what’s there.”
The city has issued some 50 to 75 building permits in the affected area.
Progress has come, without question. But there is still much to be done, particularly for private property owners.
“We are still in recovery mode and probably will be for the foreseeable future,” said Nicole Clinkscales, director of Community Recovery of Lowndes County (CRLC), a volunteer group assembled to help with both short- and long-term recovery for residents with few resources. “The hard work we’ve been doing since we really got off the ground in May, we’ll probably be doing for another year.”
The CRLC, comprised of volunteers, many from area churches, has been a beacon of hope for many.
Armed with a Mississippi Emergency Management Agency grant of $250,000, and with private donations of another $25,000, the CRLC faces a daunting challenge — using the available funds to help as many residents as possible.
For CRLC, much of the last few months have been devoted to organization — signing up qualified residents, ensuring they have clear titles to their properties, assessing damage and assembling volunteer work crews to finish the projects.
CRLC work begins
Rev. Aislinn Kopp of First United Methodist Church is the Unmet Needs Chair for the CRLC, working with two case workers provided through a grant from the national Methodist Church.
“Right now, we have 31 actives cases, with nine cases that we’ve closed,” Kopp said.
One of those closed cases involved repairs on Annette and Roscoe Bradley’s home on Division Street, which suffered a badly damaged roof, a flooded den and a picture window that was blown out of the house.
Annette Bradley was one of those who signed up for assistance at the Trotter Convention Center downtown soon after the storm. After interviews with CRLC staff, her property was assessed and she was provided a case worker. In the interim, the Bradleys remained in their home, water leaking into the den with each rainfall.
“We didn’t sit around,” she said. “The next day after the storm, we were cleaning up whatever we could. Every time we tried to fix the (leaks) the rain would still come in. Until we could get stuff fixed, I just prayed and asked God for help for me and everybody in the storm.”
About a month ago, the CRLC work team arrived to repair her home.
“You talk about somebody happy? I was happy,” Annette said. “When they came here — it was a group from Vibrant Church — I just couldn’t believe all they did. They fixed the roof, put in the new window, even painted my little fence. I was just so blessed.”
Clinkscales said that most of the cases CRLC has worked on so far have been those in need of fewer repairs.
“Some of these are going to have to be total rebuilds,” she said. “That’s costly, so the idea was as the MEMA money is dispersed (the first $50,000 arrived in July), we would work on as many of the smaller projects as we could. As time goes by, we’ll start on the rebuilds.”
Donations, volunteers needed
Because MEMA funds are restricted to the purchase of materials, other needs — clothing, furniture, temporary housing — must come through donations.
In addition to money, the CRLC is also in need of volunteers to help with repairs and rebuilds.
“With any build, the labor costs are the biggest expense,” Clinkscales said. “We’ve had a lot of help from churches and some contractors have volunteered their services. But there is still a need for volunteers. The more volunteers we have, the more people we can help.”
Help is also on the way from the Mennonite Disaster Services, which has become legendary for its work in helping communities rebuild after natural disasters. They are expected to arrive in November, at which point, the CRLC hopes to begin work on the majority of its major repair and rebuild jobs.
Through FEMA, public property damaged or destroyed by the tornado can be repaired. MEMA funds are available through CRLC to help homeowners. But there is another segment of the community that is eligible for neither.
“We can’t help with rental properties,” Clinkscales said. “That’s going to be a problem for the city. The landlords just aren’t coming back. They’re taking their insurance money and using it for other things.”
With renters accounting for much as 80 percent of residents displaced by the tornado, the CRLC continues to try to find long-term housing.
“We identified 63 families that needed housing,” said Tommy Gillom, a CRLC committee member from Fairview Baptist Church. “At first, it was about short-term housing, just giving people a place to stay immediately after the storm.
“The challenge now is long-term housing,” he said. “Even in a nice hotel, you can only stand it so long.”
Gillom said CRLC has placed people in affordable housing, including subsidized housing. Churches have purchased some homes. Trinity opened spots for those elderly in need of nursing home residency.
“I’m sure there are still some people who aren’t permanently placed,” Gillom said. “Some are living with relatives, some are probably still in hotels. But we feel like we’ve made a lot of progress getting people settled in more permanent situations.”
‘Better days ahead’
The Cockrells own their home outright and had insurance. Deundrae said his parents are looking for a nice place out in the country.
“Maybe in Caledonia,” he said. “They should be able to find something they like.”
Even so, its been both a physical and emotional struggle for his parents, both in their late 60s.
“These last six months, they’ve been hard,” Deundrae said. “But better days are ahead.”
That, too, is the mantra of those who are still recovering from the Feb. 23 tornado.
To Help:
To volunteer, send an email to [email protected]. Donations can be mailed to Community Recovery of Lowndes County, P.O. Box 821, Columbus, MS. 39703. For more information on recovery efforts visit: www.uwlc-ms.org
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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