Alabama tornadoes: Cities turn toward ways to rebuild

By Robin DeMonia -- The Birmingham News 

Published: Wednesday, July 27, 2011, 5:03 AM, 

It's a path of destruction now -- a tragic trail left when a giant tornado cut across the city of Tuscaloosa, killing dozens of people, destroying businesses and ripping neighborhoods to shreds.

But someday, it could be a valuable asset -- a greenway stretching through the heart of the city that connects Tuscaloosa communities, provides a corridor for pedestrians and bicyclists, and serves as a perpetual memorial of the terrible tornado that struck three months ago today.

The "path of remembrance and revitalization" is just one of the visions that emerged from a task force that studied rebuilding Tuscaloosa. The first draft of Tuscaloosa Forward's ambitious plan incorporates everything from walkable village centers and green spaces, to prettified streetscapes and community storm shelters.

"I believe we owe it to those who died on April 27, those who are still missing and those who lost so much to rebuild this city in a way that honors them," Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said. "We'd be doing them a disservice if we were satisfied with the status quo."

EnlargeJoe Songer -- The Birmingham NewsOn the 3 month anniversary of the April 27th tornado outbreak , the City of Cullman is preparing for a major rebuild in the downtown area hardest hit by the EF4 tornado that ripped through town. Mayor Max Townson and local Cotton States insurance agent Lee Powell look to the future. Lee Powell jumps down from where his insurance business once stood to where the new garage is to be built. He plans to expand in size and live upstairs from his business. He plans to start rebuilding next month. (The Birmingham News/Joe Songer)Three months after the April 27th tornadoes gallery(7 photos)

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Tuscaloosa's evolving plan is further along than most cities. But three months after the April 27 storms, communities large and small across the state are at least beginning to plot a path forward.

In Cullman, a downtown rebuilding plan that stresses historic restoration, loft dwelling and German-American architecture is expected to be presented soon to the City Council. In Cordova, residents are brainstorming with a range of experts to crystallize what they want their devastated town to become. In Pratt City and other Birmingham neighborhoods, a national design team from the American Institute of Architects will soon begin working with residents to develop a master plan for the future.

Birmingham architect Bruce Herrington, co-chairman of the steering committee for the AIA Design Assistance Team, said the work will encompass the whole Pratt community and will cover such elements as streets, sidewalks, public facilities, commercial development and parks.

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Tuscaloosa Alabama Neighborhoods plan next move after storm

July 27, 2011 2:05 AM CST, by Sarah Massey, Ashley Chaffin and Jasmine Cannon

Forest Lake

By Sarah Massey

For residents of Forest Lake, the recovery over the last three months since the tornado has largely been focused on cleanup and planning for the future of the neighborhood.

Christine Dietsch, president of the Forest Lake Neighborhood Association, said there is a focus on keeping residents informed of what is going on in the larger planning process of the city and with Tuscaloosa Forward, as well as providing venues for residents to interact with city officials and those who will have an impact on the future of the neighborhood.

Dietsch said there have been “mixed reviews” by residents toward the plan put out by Tuscaloosa Forward because “there’s a level of uncertainty.” Many residents are concerned about what the future of Forest Lake will look like – unsure about what the surrounding area will be if they choose to rebuild now.

“Right now, the current focus is making it possible, and as easy as possible, for people who are in the process of rebuilding,” she said. “… Most people want to be able to know that if they rebuild, the empty lot next to them is not going to be a high-rise apartment building – of course that’s an exaggeration.”

Heather McCullar, a five-year resident of Forest Lake, is planning on staying in the neighborhood and said that she hopes Forest Lake remains primarily a residential area. She said that much of the focus of cleanup in the neighborhood has been tearing down houses and clearing lots so rebuilding can begin. She said there appear to be more residents staying than leaving and that morale is good.

“I think they’re frustrated with not being home, but I think they’re happy,” she said.

“People do want to come back,” Dietsch said. “People are pretty adamant about ‘I want to come back, I want to stay here, and I have a stake in this.’”

She stressed the importance of addressing people’s concerns within the neighborhood and providing people with as much information as possible throughout the rebuilding process. One venue where concerns will be expressed and information exchanged is at the Forest Lake annual meeting on Aug. 11 at 5:30 p.m. at the Forest Lake United Methodist Church. City officials will be present.

“I think that Forest Lake is so critical to the life of the city of Tuscaloosa that a lot of focus will be on Forest Lake,” Dietsch said. “… I see the character of Forest Lake remaining primarily residential, but I also think that there’s a lot of room for innovation, successful innovation that can serve as a model for what can happen in Tuscaloosa for the future.”

Rosedale

By Ashley Chaffin

The Rosedale community was directly in the path of the April 27 tornado as it pummeled through Tuscaloosa, taking almost everything with it. After the tornado had passed, what was left of the brick housing community was almost unrecognizable, except for a few walls left standing.

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HUD's Fred Tombar testifies to Congress on FEMA and HUD efforts for Long Term Recovery support to Spirit Lake Nation, ND

July 21, 2011, US Congressional Testimony of Fred Tombar, HUD

Link to Testimony

...A Model for Coordinated Flood Mitigation:  The Spirit Lake Long-Term 
Flood Recovery Plan
Although several Northern Plains tribes are now experiencing flood damage, the
North Dakota Spirit Lake tribe has suffered flood damage to its communities for an
extensive period of time.  In December 2010, the Spirit Lake Recovery Plan was issued
to provide focused cost- and time-efficient strategies to address the 17-plus years of
flooding experienced by the Tribe.  The Plan was generated as a part of FEMA’s 3
Emergency Support Function 14 (ESF 14 Long-Term Community Recovery), and
involves numerous Recovery Plan partners at the tribal, federal, state, and local levels.
Northern Plains ONAP staff traveled to Spirit Lake during September and December to
assist in finalizing and “kicking off” the Recovery Plan implementation.

Minot Bypass project put on hold

July 20, 2011
By DAVE CALDWELL - Staff Writer (dcaldwell@minotdailynews.com) , Minot Daily News
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Ward County Highway Engineer Dana Larsen went to Tuesday morning's regularly scheduled meeting of the Ward County Board of Commissioners expecting to get the signature of board chair Jerome Gruenberg on contracts to officially begin construction of the multimillion-dollar Northeast Bypass and 55th Street Overpass project.

Instead, he discovered that on the eve of a project that shows promise of finally having a feel-good story for area infrastructure on the heels of flooding destruction, the entire project has spiraled headlong into the muck of doubt.

In the course of a not-so-unusual court filing to attempt to gain what the landowner considers a fair price for his land as the government purchases right-of-way to make space for construction of the overpass and bypass projects, Gregory Baumgarten, who owns the Trading Post, a used auto parts retailer, also filed a request for the court to grant an injunction prohibiting any further action on the project while matters are pending.

Compounding problems is the fact that the project survived by the skin of its teeth on at least one previous occasion when its $14.2 million federal TIGER II grant funding was threatened by federal spending cutbacks because it had not yet made enough progress.

Due to the flooding situation in the area, a 30-day extension was granted to relax a June 20 deadline, meaning that today, on July 20, those funds could be very much in peril once again. Without those federal dollars - especially considering massive flooding damage amounts facing local and state resources - the project will likely die.

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Joplin officials consider rebuilding options, keeping building codes, safety in mind

aturday, July 23, 2011 | 5:19 p.m. CDT; updated 12:33 p.m. CDT, Monday, August 1, 2011

BY ALAN SCHER ZAGIER/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOPLIN — Empty concrete pads where houses once stood. Untouched playgrounds still riddled with broken glass. A once-bustling retail district, eerily quiet on a weekend night.

Two months after a tornado split Joplin in half, recovery has barely begun, and the city remains focused on cleaning up massive mounds of debris. But leaders say Joplin and the neighboring village of Duquesne already face another question: How much to rebuild and how much to reinvent?

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, what we really want to do is return to business as usual, go back to exactly what was there at the earliest possible time, get everyone back in their homes," said Bob Berkebile, a Kansas City architect and disaster recovery specialist who has been working informally as a consultant in Joplin. "But I have never seen a community where they couldn't have made a decision to build back something different."

In Joplin, city officials, neighborhoods and families are beginning to confront decisions that involve trade-offs of cost, speed, quality and uncertainty.

They could strengthen building codes to produce better houses, which might also cause some delay; plot out more parks and amenities that would raise the quality of life but require detailed planning; require new storm safety features that would balance peace of mind against greater expense for those of modest incomes.

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Morehead State helps Olive Hill Kentucky Build on ESF #14 Recovery Plan

While most students across the country simply open their textbooks and read about public administration, Morehead State MPA student Julie Potter is living it.

“I was worried at first because all of my education had been applied in real world practice at that point,” Potter said, recalling her first discussions about the project. “Once I actually got into the project and got going I realized how much my education had truly prepared me for what I was taking on.”

Potter is involved with the Olive Hill Long Term Recovery Plan. The recovery was needed because in May of 2010, and again in July, Olive Hill, Kentucky was hit by devastating floods that swamped downtown businesses and homes with up to 5 feet of water. As the waters rushed in multiple rescues were carried out, including 43 by boat. Almost three hundred residences were damaged or destroyed, and nearly seventy percent of businesses located within the city limits were affected by the flooding. The devastation was on such a large scale that Kentucky Governor Steven L. Beshear requested federal assistance, and President Obama signed a disaster declaration on May 11 and again on July 23, making assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) available to the beleaguered city.

But how does one go about rebuilding a community that has been so deeply impacted? The floods had left behind more than simply silt and debris; doubts, despair and uncertainty about the future had also been deposited. A critical component for the successful future of the town would revolve around the cooperation of the community to address both immediate and future needs and priorities. They were helped in this initiative by the Department of Homeland Security/Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Support Function (ESF) #14. The centerpiece of ESF#14 is the Long-Term Community Recovery (LTRC) program, which focuses on a community identifying its own unique long-term needs and priorities, and also in building capacity to address those needs.

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Recovery resources: Expo provides information for storm victims

TUSCALOOSA | Tornado survivors received answers about how to make the transition from temporary to permanent housing at the Housing and Recovery Expo in Tuscaloosa.
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The Alabama Housing Task Force, working with the Alabama Emergency Agency and FEMA, sponsored the expo. Community businesses, voluntary organizations, the U.S. Small Business Administration, and other state and federal agencies also participated in the expo. Open house attendees were also assisted with topics such as crisis counseling, foreclosures, insurance and legal aid.

Thomas Wilder, manager of Alagasco’s Rebuild Assistance Program, said that people typically wanted to know if rebates or grants are available for energy needs.

“We’re trying to get involved with the community and serve,” Wilder said. “We just want to make sure that they citizens are able to come back to us.”

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Alabama Recovery panels focus on long term - Members outline nearly five-year rebuilding process

By Dana Beyerle
Montgomery Bureau Chief
Published: Friday, July 8, 2011 at 3:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, July 7, 2011 at 11:36 p.m.
MONTGOMERY | The state’s six community recovery task forces met Thursday to begin preparing for long-term recovery from the April tornadoes that devastated north Alabama.

Gov. Robert Bentley created the task forces last month to help communities recover from the tornadoes that hit April 15 and April 27, killing nearly 250 people and destroying or damaging more than 20,000 homes statewide.

Each task force will focus on a specific segment of recovery: infrastructure; ­economic development; health and social services; housing, community planning and capacity building; and natural and cultural resources. The Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs is the coordinating agency for the task forces.

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Kansas Town Builds A Clean Energy Field of Dreams

School superintendent Darin Headrick remembers the day the massive 200 mile-an-hour tornado struck his small Kansas community four years ago. His school—along with 95 percent of the town—was blown into a Hiroshima-like pile of rubble by the monster twister. Fortunately the school wasn’t in session at the time, although 11 people lost their lives in the small town. But he wondered what kind of future lay ahead for his students?
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Recently, Darin’s been in touch with the tornado ravaged communities of Tuscaloosa, AL, and Joplin, MO. School officials and business leaders there are eager to learn about the amazing recovery efforts in Greensburg. But Darin says what makes him feel especially good is that local school enrollment is continuing to climb as families are eager to send their kids to a school built with the latest high-tech energy-efficient design.

It’s all part of an amazing green tech revolution that’s sprung up in America’s heartland. The people of Greensburg are proud to be small-town energy-efficient pioneers, building a sustainable future for the world to admire and emulate. After all, the people of Greensburg built their American dream out of the desolate grasslands of the prairie. Building a new clean energy community in the corn and wheat fields of Kansas is not all that different.

Build it and they will come, folks here say. And with each passing day, they are.

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A Mighty Wind V - Squeezing out some Tuscaloosians

Tuesday, 12 July 2011

community | Stephen Key

A Mighty Wind V - Squeezing out some Tuscaloosians

I think Tuscaloosa’s hiring of BNIM to help guide the city to a master plan for rebuilding is going to prove a good move. That is, if more people participate in the process.

The meeting the company sponsored June 30 seemed communal and congenial, but it lacked good participation from some segments of the community. At all events, I hope the open community involvement was a precursor to the overall agenda for the city’s recovery strategy.

If you go online to townhall.tuscaloosaforward.com, you’ll be able to make a comment. You’ll also see a long list of ideas and comments related to them about rebuilding preferences. It seems everyone contributing on the site wants what’s best for Tuscaloosa, but that, of course, includes their pet projects and causes. Some want Forest Lake and older Cedar Crest to remain single family residential areas, a suggestion likely resulting from fears of the 30,000 and growing enrollees at the University of Alabama who swallow up near-campus real estate for student rentals. At the time of the mighty wind though, those areas were already inhabited by large numbers of students. Stories abound, including some of my own, about students being extremely helpful in the immediate aftermath of the storm and caring deeply about the plight of all Tuscaloosans.

At least UA has been proactive in helping students find suitable housing.

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FEMA long-term recovery workers meet with residents in Holt

Published: Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 11:40 PM     Updated: Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 11:41 PM

 By Izzy Gould | Tuscaloosa Bureau

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama - HOLT -- Six people sat around a table covered completely by a blank sheet of paper.

A FEMA worker asked them to visualize their ideal community. She then asked them to pick up vibrantly colored magic markers, and to draw the words and pictures that symbolize the vital needs of Holt and the surrounding area.
In the next step toward rebuilding, a team of five working as part of FEMA's Long Term Community Recovery program met Tuesday night with about 100 community members at SOMA Body of Christ church. The program is a federal, state and local effort that enables disaster-affected communities to identify opportunities for a more effective recovery.
The two-hour meeting and workshop also served as an introductory session between the FEMA team, which will work in the community for the next eight-to-10 weeks while staying in a local hotel. Their purpose is to listen to community members, and to give them guidance toward planning the rebuilding of the Holt community.

Three points that were emphasized were identifying rebuilding opportunities, creating partnerships and maximizing resources.
"This is sort of the beginning point where you begin to understand what the visions are from the community," said John Boyle, an official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

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County mulls flood recovery options

A variety of topics were discussed at the Ward County Commission meeting Tuesday morning, including space needs for the Ward County Sheriff's Department and help from a firm specializing in disaster recovery assistance.

Ward County Sheriff Steve Kukowski asked the county commission for extra space at the County North Building to store evidence. Kukowski said an area of the building on the far west side that is separated by a wall was set aside for Ward County Social Services, but they have no plans to utilize that space.

Kukowski said sheriff's department personnel could take the wall down and then a fence could be installed where the wall was to make the area secure.

But before that can happen, the camels from Roosevelt Park Zoo now in residence there would have to be moved. Kukowski said Ron Merritt, director of parks, has assured him that will be happening.

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First of FEMA homes being installed on private lots

July 29, 2011
By ELOISE OGDEN - Regional Editor (eogden@minotdailynews.com) , Minot Daily News
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The first Federal Emergency Management Agency homes have been placed on individual lots in Ward County, primarily for the Minot and Burlington communities.

Noel Boxer, external affairs officer with FEMA, said as of noon Thursday, the lease on one FEMA home had been signed.

He said the lease is the last step in obtaining a FEMA manufactured home and now that individual or family already is living in one of the homes.

FEMA placed three units in the Minot area Tuesday, seven units Wednesday and five more units Thursday, for a total of 15 units placed on private sites, Boxer said. He said those units are at various stages of installation.

FEMA will be bringing in "into the hundreds" of manufactured homes, Boxer said. "The numbers are being calculated on a daily basis as the request is made from an applicant who has a need for longterm temporary housing and as FEMA determines eligibility.

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Can America's 'best hometown' survive?

Hackleburg, Alabama (CNN) -- In a small town that has lost almost everything, there is no shortage of questions.
First came the spiritual and philosophical questions -- the ones residents of this community of nearly 1,500 faced immediately after the 210 mph winds of a massive April tornado nearly wiped them off the map.
Was it God's wrath or natural tragedy? As residents rounded up and burned or shipped the debris that was once their town, they mourned their 18 neighbors who died, and weighed how to feel about their fate.
About 150 people left town. Those who remained held tightly to each other. And now, more than two months later, they await answers to another set of questions: practical, bricks-and-mortar decisions that will shape the town's future and affect their daily lives.
Hackleburg's two schools are gone. So is its only grocery store. Its only pharmacy. Only doctor's office. And major employer.
Will Wrangler -- the "Mercedes Benz" of Hackleburg -- rebuild its giant distribution center?
Will the Piggly Wiggly -- "the Pig," as most folks call it -- come back?
What will happen if they don't