By JANE CLASPY NESMITH
for The Gazette
ABOVE: Homes along Iowa Avenue in downtown Iowa City were some
of the hardest hit by the tornado that touched down on April
14. |
Last spring, snowbirds Paul and Joy Maske didn’t plan on coming
back to Iowa City from their winter home in Mesa, Arizona, until the
end of April. But a phone call from their son changed all that.
“He said that there’d been a tornado and that our house
had been hit,” said Joy Maske. “So we got up at 5 the
next day and drove all the way to Iowa City.”
The sight of their home on Rochester Avenue shocked them.
“It was horrible,” said Maske. “All the siding was
off, one-fourth of the roof was gone, all the windows downstairs were
broken, and every wall was cracked. We lost our garage and my little
Saturn that only had 13,000 miles on it.”
Many Iowa City homeowners faced extensive damage from the powerful
twister that ripped through the Iowa City area this spring. And it
is local remodelers who are putting things back together again.
When such extensive damage is done, remodelers need to do a kind of
triage, making decisions about which kinds of projects need to be
done first. This is tough to do when receiving a barrage of phone
calls for help. “A day or two after the tornado, once the downed
trees were cleaned up, calls started coming in,” said Bill Yoder
of Ramsey Creek in Kalona, who took on three remodeling projects to
repair tornado damage. Because it came at the beginning of the remodeling
season, “We had to postpone other scheduled remodel plans,”
Yoder said. “But everyone was patient.”
The requests for help piled up, often frustrating remodelers who eventually
couldn’t take on any more projects. “I was in tears many
days because the phone just rang and rang and rang,” said Katie
Lammers of Lammers Construction. “We couldn’t take on
any more projects. I had to turn away about 100 people.” Busy
remodelers tried to refer homeowners with smaller, less immediate
needs to other companies. The destruction these remodelers saw was
extensive. “There was a lot of roof damage,” said Yoder.
“Siding was often torn off or damaged by debris blowing up against
the side of the house. One house we’re working on had the front
porch and three-seasons back porch completely torn off.”
In general, the rebuilding has been a long, slow process, with the
most severe damage being repaired first. “We went in right away
and got windows repaired,” said Yoder. “We also got roofs
done as quickly as possible so the house would stay dry.”
Then it was a long slow summer of recovery. Many items needed for
repairs had to be ordered, Lammers says, with orders often taking
six to eight weeks to arrive.
The Maskes had to have all the rooms in their home completely redone,
with new plaster, paint and carpet. Rain water had damaged the rooms,
and flying debris had made holes in many of the walls. Some homes
needed special treatment. “We worked on an older home on C Street,”
said Lammers. “The chimney had been completely blown away. We
had to find a mason to come in and do historic brickwork.”
Other homes had damage that was not noticeable until weeks after the
tornado. Many homes suffered structural damage that caused shifting
of the foundation or walls. “There were cracks in the dry wall
and plaster,” said Yoder. “And later in the summer, homeowners
found that doors were sticking and windows wouldn’t work right.”
Remodeling still goes on, even into the fall. “We’re replacing
the Maskes’ garage right now,” said Lammers, who expects
their company to continue working on tornado repairs through the end
of the year.
But most homeowners have been patient and grateful for the help.
“It feels good now that we have a place to live,” said
Maske. “And it’s just like it was before. They’ve
done a great job.”
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