- Video shows footage as the Arbor Day tornado ripped through Washington County and the work neighbors have put into rebuilding their homes.
- Ken and Kelly Tracy saw their home destroyed in the tornado but their love for their neighbors brought them back to rebuild.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
There is a lot that goes into making a house home.
“It’s hard to really put into words. Its home, there is a comfort level there. A neighborhood, a belonging and a community,” said Washington County home owner Ken Tracy.
For more than a decade Ken and his wife Kelly Tracy had lived in their dream home just south of Blair.
Then, on Arbor Day 2024, a tornado that had torn its way through Lincoln, Waverly and Elkhorn turned northeast towards Blair.
Right in the path of the Tracy’s home.
“When all of a sudden thats gone, you struggle to find that again. Something is missing and you can’t replace it right away,” said Ken.
In the tornados wake it left the pieces of what used to be Ken and Kelly’s home, along with many of their neighbors, scattered across the neighborhood.
“Decisions after decision had to be made. From what are we gonna do with our dogs, are we gonna have to rehome them? Are we gonna find a place to live tomorrow? What are we gonna do in the long term?” said Kelly Tracy.
Like many in Washington County Ken and Kelly were left with a choice, leave the neighborhood that they had come to call home or stay and rebuild.
“Ultimately we just kept coming back to the fact that we loved this place,” said Ken.
Slowly but surely the Tracy’s neighborhood is coming back to life. Many of their neighbors decided to come back and rebuild and Ken and Kelly said there are even a few new faces moving in.
“Before you saw the devastation before the tornado but now we are seeing things come back to life literally,” said Kelly.
“Recovery has been surprisingly quick. There was a huge outpouring of help from everybody. I have seen houses that were completely demolished back up and standing,” said Jared Bledsoe who worked at the nearby Skinny Bones Pumpkin Patch.
There is still work to do before the neighborhood is back to its old self.
Ken and Kelly’s home won’t be finished until later this year and the trees around the neighborhood will bear the scars of the storm for some time.
But the Tracy’s said they are ready to stick with the neighborhood for the long haul.
“It’s not all terrible. Nobody was hurt thankfully and for that we are thankful. So we are just gonna keep plugging away until we can move back in, whenever that will be,” said Ken.
