The damage to The Villages, and surrounding area, took place in a matter of minutes. The repairs took more than a year. Dozens of blue tarps remained in the villages of Mallory and Caroline well after the tornado’s first anniversary.. It wasn’t that the workers were slow, there was just too much to do.
I stayed in Florida for a few days before heading back to work. As the house dried out, some things settled back into place. The wood trim around the sliding glass door, and windows, shrunk back as if nothing had happened. All we had to do was tap the nails back down. The seals around the sliding door settled in too. The insurance adjuster thought they would need to be totally replaced. In the end, the paint just needed to be touched up.
After I left, Ruth took charge of getting everything repaired. I came back for a couple of week-ends, but the scheduling of workers fell to her. She hired carpenters, painters, window experts, and a roofer. It took about three months, but our house went back to normal. Others weren’t so lucky.
Dozens of homes were completely destroyed. The developers of The Villages were a great help. Those who lost their homes had four options. 1) The developers assigned one of their builders to rebuild the home. 2) Assign the insurance payment to the developer and move to another home somewhere else in The Villages. 3) Hire their own builder. 4) Take the insurance payment and move out of The Villages. The developers built new homes on the lots that owners agreed to trade or abandoned. Most of the homes lost in the tornado were of wood frame construction. Many who took on the task of rebuilding opted for block construction during the rebuild. I’m not sure they were safer, but the owners felt more secure.
On one of my several inspection walks, I spoke to a neighbor who awoke to the sound of “a train”. He got out of bed, went to the window, and the window started to bow in and out. He grabbed his wife, and rolled onto the floor just as the window exploded. They weren’t hurt but had extensive damage to their home.
The local news channels provided dozens of stories about those affected by the tornado. One TV story featured a man in his mid-eighties and two ladies in their forties who befriended him. The TV crew zoomed in on the man sitting on his bed, still perfectly made, while the two helpers packed the contents of his closet and bedroom dresser. Pictures and a crucifix could be seen hanging on the walls. The cameraman scanned the room while the reporter interviewed him. At the end of the interview, the cameraman tilted his camera upward. Blue sky shown brightly above them. The entire roof was lifted off the house, but its contents remained untouched.
The summer following the tornado, I played golf with a guy who looked very familiar. We exchanged pleasantries like: “Where are you from?” “Are you a seasonal or permanent resident?” “What did you do before becoming a full-time golfer?” After our brief exchange I followed with, “You look familiar. Have we played together before?”
“I don’t think so, but you may have seen my picture on the front page of the paper.”
“Why were you in the paper?”
“We lost our house when the tornado hit last February. We signed for it at four o’clock on the 1st, and twelve hours later it was gone. I made the paper as the shortest term resident of The Villages. They offered us our choice of several other houses, and we moved in a couple of days later.”
Those impacted on that February day will never forget what happened. As the years pass, they retell their stories less often, but the memories live on.
