HARRISON TWP. — Exactly one month ago, 15 tornadoes touched down across the region, changing people’s lives forever.
PHOTOS: Harrison Twp. homes, businesses damaged by tornado
People affected are in different stages of recovery, with some struggling day-to-day just to survive.
News Center 7’s Sean Cudahy stood in Harrison Twp. next to a damaged building where tables, and even a semi truck, filled with food, water and other donations were available. Those sorts of resources have tapered off the last few weeks as people move toward the next steps of recovery.
"It was scary. It was, it was like 'oh my gosh. What if this doesn't work out. Is there going to be something there to cushion the fall?’” Sarah Gayman said.
But then, the lights came back on at her Northridge home, and the water, and the gas.
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Despite roof damage and blown out windows, things a month later seem a little more normal, she said, especially now that her family already received thousands of dollars from FEMA.
“It happened very quickly for us,” Gayman said.
But others are still facing serious challenges, including Joyce Hilton in Harrison Twp., who said things are “not good” for her.
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The home she was staying in is destroyed. She’s taken shelter in a storm-damaged home, but there are no utilities and she said it’s about to be condemned. “Oh, it sucks. You can’t hardly sleep because you’re so hot and sweaty. It’s just everything.”
Even after a month, power crews were out working in one Harrison Twp. neighborhood Thursday night.
Gayman said bureaucracy and red tape has been a new challenge for some on her street.
“I think some of them are discouraged, especially the ones that are working with insurance,” she said.
With life's routines starting to return at Gayman’s house -- one of her new goals figuring out to whom the portraits that below into her house during the storm belong.
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There’s also the longer term missing as well as healing from the psychological effects of one month ago.
“Just today we were out swimming. You felt the wind change and the trees started rustling. I was like ‘get out of the pool! Get out of the pool!’ So I know there’s still like, some trauma there.”
While some of those volunteer stands are now gone, there is another kind of help now available.
FEMA has set up three different disaster recovery offices across the hard hit areas.
