Eighteen days after a tornado traumatized Amherst County, mainly the Elon community where more than a dozen homes were leveled, a group consisting of organizations and local officials held its first meeting last Thursday to address long-term recovery needs.
The April 15 tornado, with winds up to 150 mph, tore through Elon and caused roughly $10 million in damages throughout the county, according to Amherst County officials. The storm affected 170 homes, 30 of which are destroyed or have major damage, said Amanda Reidelbach, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management’s volunteer agency liaison.
County Administrator Dean Rodgers said the long-term recovery group will consolidate resources and deploy donations, including money and materials that have poured in.
“The tornado recovery is not over,” Rodgers said. “It’s really just beginning.”
Ten families impacted by the event are uninsured, according to Nate Young, Amherst County’s chief building official, and the county is assisting eight families with housing needs. More than 40 people gathered at the county administration building Thursday to begin discussing how to use available resources to help those survivors most in need of it.
“This is a long-term recovery,” Reidelbach said, adding: “You’re in shock. You respond, everyone floods in and wants to help and — what’s next? There’s a lot of work still to be done.”
Several local ministries and representatives of Amherst County Habitat for Humanity, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross and Concord-based Gleaning for the World, among others, were in attendance Thursday.
“You bring a lot of resources to the table,” said Amherst County Administrator Dean Rodgers to gatherers. “We’re here to concentrate the efforts to these families that need that help. We want to pull the whole community together.”
Rodgers said those who lost everything and are uninsured are the group’s “target audience.”
Much of the two-hour meeting was spent discussing organizing and how to direct money, material and skills where it is most needed along with handling necessary paperwork, forming a mission statement and management of financial resources.
Overseeing rebuilding and repairing homes to a safe, sanitary, secure and functional condition also is a component of the group’s focus, along with developing a communications strategy for reaching storm survivors.
Rodgers said Amherst County would provide services of its county attorney in dealing with any legal questions, some of which came up during the course of Thursday’s meeting.
The group’s talks centered mainly on helping Amherst County residents affected by the storm with an understanding it could interact with leaders from Lynchburg and Campbell County, which also suffered damage from the tornado, in future meetings.
Brad Mullinax, pastor of River Church in Madison Heights who was chosen as the group’s chair, said it’s amazing to see so many nonprofits, agencies and businesses working together to get resources to those who need it.
“That’s what is important,” Mullinax said. “All of these organizations have been collecting money, resources and now we’re going to start being able to put it into practice. It’s going to be a process to establish the organization and move it into action.”
His church coordinated volunteer efforts in mobilizing hundreds of residents and Amherst County Public Schools students to help with the cleanup efforts on April 18. He said his church has an annual Easter egg hunt that organizes large crowds, so that experience came in handy.
“We were already equipped to do that,” he said.
The group also selected individuals to serve in roles such as coordinating donations, spiritual care, volunteering and case management along with a treasurer and construction management coordinator.
Reidelbach said he learned disaster recovery firsthand after an August 2011 devastated Louisa County, where she lives, destroying a pair of schools in the process. She said sound and vibration are “trigger events” her community has dealt with and Amherst County also will have those.
“I’ve been where you are sitting,” she said. “There’s a trauma there.”
She said in Louisa County, a recovery group didn’t form into the following February. The group, once up and running as an official entity, also could be well equipped to handle future disasters as they arise locally, she said.
Roy St. John, Gleaning for the World’s disaster coordinator, said $36,000 worth of items have been distributed to the Elon area. He said he was amazed by the “unbelievable demand” for size 4 diapers as the organization has responded to the tornado’s aftermath throughout Virginia and North Carolina.
Rev. Steve Tyree, pastor of Elon Baptist Church, which served as a command post for emergency responders in the immediate wake of the disaster, said the church has taken in donations, food and clothing to help those in need.
“This is our neighborhood and these are our people,” Tyree said. “I care about the people as much as I do the buildings. We’re neighbors.”