Preliminary assessment: Portage tornado destroyed 60 buildings

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — Authorities on Monday released the findings of a preliminary damage assessment following the EF2 tornado that tore through the Portage area last week, saying 60 buildings were destroyed.

Along the May 7 tornado’s 11-mile path through Texas Township, the city of Portage and Pavilion Township, the number of irreparably damaged buildings included 25 single-family homes, eight multifamily buildings, 24 mobile homes and three business structures with multiple tenants, Kalamazoo County’s Office of Emergency Management said.

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Officials classified 129 buildings with major damage, which means structures that are either “going to require extensive repair to get it back to the way it was or they may have to tear it down,” Kalamazoo County Emergency Management Director Mike Corfman explained.

That 129 buildings breaks down to 80 single-family homes, 11 multi-family buildings, 27 mobile homes, 10 businesses with multiple tenants and one nonprofit structure — the rectory for St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church in Portage.

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More than 400 buildings sustained minor damage or were otherwise affected, Corfman told reporters Monday.

“The reason we didn’t concentrate on those numbers specifically is because (federal agencies) look at the destroyed and major damage structures when they determine whether or not they’re going to be able to come in,” he said.

The emergency management office said the damage counts will likely change as more information is gathered.

Corfman couldn’t yet assign a dollar amount to all the damage, saying it’s a complicated figure to calculate.

“The problem with damage assessment is that we can go back into community records and look at what the property may be assessed at from an equalization standpoint, but that’s the land and the building. So we only have building damage in most cases — unfortunately, trees are not covered in that,” he said, going on to say that land value would remain the same even as the building value changes.

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The storm spared Janet Laurin-Knudsen’s Portage home of 62 years but did damage an outdoor windmill her father made in 1980. The windmill had survived decades of severe weather.

“The branch off the tree was huge. (It) landed on the side and took out the top. But it’s made really strong and the side was holding up the branch and hopefully we can remake the top,” Laurin-Knudsen said. “In our neighborhood, (the storm) didn’t seem to damage the homes. The trees fell all different ways and missed houses. Unbelievable.”

She was grateful everyone survived despite the scale of the devastation.

“I just praise God for that. Everything else can be replaced,” she said.

DAMAGE ASSESSMENT AROUND SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, requires a preliminary damage assessment for a region to be considered for federal assistance.

“We go out and we are just getting a snapshot for FEMA,” Corfman explained. “We’re trying to accumulate all of those structures that are either destroyed or severely damaged because we have to meet a threshold. Once we meet that threshold, then the affected and the minors are just icing on the cake. So we wanted to hit those major ones first.”

He said FEMA teams would later get a more precise count of every affected building. People’s insurance, Corfman said, will be the first to cover damage costs; FEMA would help cover deductibles and the Small Business Administration would offer low-interest loans.

“I’ve deployed to a lot of disaster areas in the course of my job and my military service. You go into those to help out those people, obviously, but you’re there to do a job. But this happened to our community, and this is really kind of different to me. I’m trying to work through all of this, and it hit close to my neighborhood, and it hit in my county. We’re taking this a little more personal,” Corfman said. “We’re trying as hard as we can to get the proper aid that we need from the federal government and all of our other partners.”

The same storm that spawned the Portage tornado also spawned three other confirmed tornadoes in Southwest Michigan, including another EF2 that marched about 20 miles from Centreville to the Union City area.

The widespread damage means there will be multiple assessment teams out across the region this week. Teams are made up of representatives from local and state governments, as well as FEMA and the SBA.

“We’ll have six teams. They’ll be moving from one jurisdiction to another. So the first three teams will start in Kalamazoo County. The other teams will be spread out in the other counties that were affected. Once those counties get concluded, they will redeploy to up here. So at some point in time in the course of the week, we’ll have all the teams here in Kalamazoo County,” Corfman said.

CELERY FLATS STILL CLOSED

As of Monday, Kalamazoo County and Portage officials said tree removal was done and nearly all affected roads have reopened. All traffic lights were back on. The power grid was fully restored, though some buildings were still so badly damaged power could not be fed to them.

“The individual residence and building owners are starting the recovery process. They’re tarping up, trying to get the roofs back on; we’re expecting rain,” he said. “The water damage is significant in some of these buildings just because we lost roofs, shingles.”

A shelter remained open for those displaced at the First Assembly of God at 555 Oakland Drive in Portage. Corfman said 18 people stayed there Sunday night.

“We’re trying to work out some longer-term sheltering for those people,” he said. “The people who are there, their homes are gone. They just cannot go back, period.”

Celery Flats Historic Area remained closed to the public, with trails still blocked and officials worried that the historic barn-turned-venue Hayloft Theatre may collapse.

“The Hayloft Theatre was damaged significantly. The structure’s being propped up so that it doesn’t fall and damage the building more. We’re looking at estimates to how much it’s going to cost to repair that building,” city spokesperson Mary Beth Block said.

The count of people hospitalized during the storm was 16, including some who had preexisting conditions, though they weren’t necessarily harmed because of storm damage, Corfman said. For example, one woman went into labor. There were no serious injuries and no one remained hospitalized as of Monday.

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Corfman credited the small number of injuries and lack of deaths to media coverage, cellphone alerts and tornado sirens sounding.

“(People) heard the alert on their phone. The weather was threatening. We had already had a watch posted. There had been some additional warnings that were to the west of us. It was news time at night, right? People had their TVs on, they were watching it unfold,” he said. “People know it was coming and they could see it. If this had happened at 3 o’clock in the morning, I wouldn’t be so sure that we would be talking in those numbers. It could be worse.”

He urged people to ensure they have emergency alerts activated on their phones and get a weather radio. The city of Portage also has its own emergency alert system.

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The Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the United Way of South Central Michigan have both established disaster relief funds in the wake of the storm. Portage leaders also directed people to the Michigan Volunteer Registry to find out how they can help.

—News 8’s Kyle Mitchell contributed to this report.

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