Some residents, businesses getting closer to normal following February tornado
Mike Tony | Herald-Standard
Otto Brick Company Operations Manager Jason Chiado stands before the company’s destroyed warehouse and back offices off of Pittsburgh Street in North Union Township.
Otto Brick Company Operations Manager Jason Chiado stands before the company's destroyed warehouse and back offices off of Pittsburgh Street in North Union Township.
Michael Palm | Herald-Standard
Lori Hough’s Millview Street home (left) was destroyed by a tornado that blasted through Uniontown and North Union Township on Feb. 15.
Otto Brick Company Operations Manager Jason Chiado stands before the company's destroyed warehouse and back offices off of Pittsburgh Street in North Union Township.
Lori Hough’s suffering continued long after the tornado cracked her rib and destroyed her home.
After she came back from the hospital the night of Feb. 15, when a tornado tore the roof off her house and others on Millview Street in Uniontown, her landlord put her and her daughter in another house on the same street that sustained less tornado damage.
“Things we find comfort in … favorite blanket, favorite slippers, favorite sweatshirt – gone,” Hough said.
Hough could see much of what she was missing just across the street, through where her first and second-floor windows used to be before getting blown out by the tornado.
And Hough could see what she was missing elsewhere too. She recalled seeing her stove on a truck driving near the CVS in Uniontown two weeks after the tornado, and her daughter called the police after they spotted a girl going inside their home earlier this month. Hough said people have helped themselves to her belongings following the disaster.
“I call them vultures,” she said.
Having to drive past her old house every day has been tough on Hough.
“I have to look back at it,” Hough said. “It takes a toll on you.”
Still, she’s grateful for family and friends who have helped out, from a cousin in Connecticut that donated shoes and pillows to her sister providing a refrigerator and couch to go along with a stove Hough found on Facebook.
“It just kind of seems like life’s getting back to normal as much as it can,” Hough said.
Two months after the EF1 tornado blasted through Uniontown and North Union Township, residents and businesses throughout the area are getting closer to normal.
NOT WANTING TO LEAVE TOWN
Solid Rock Ministry on Millview Street isn’t having to feed 50 to 60 people daily as it did for the first two weeks after the tornado, and residents’ clothing needs have been met as well, secretary Tracy Vanek said.
But the ministry that Vanek said calls itself “the penny church” after the biblical lesson of the widow’s two mites has noticed that the economically depressed neighborhood continues to feel the squeeze from the unexpected disaster.
Many relied on Social Security or other fixed income, Vanek said, adding that they have struggled to find housing within their means, especially those that lived in subdivided apartments that were accustomed to paying only $350 to $400 monthly in rent, including utilities. Some used to walking to Family Dollar or riding a Fayette Area Coordinated Transportation (FACT) bus to get around have had to relocate to areas where walking isn’t a possibility now.
“It’s amazing how many people will not leave Uniontown,” Donna Hagan, supervisor of information and referral services at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Greensburg said recently. “They know where they shop, some don’t have cars. But their loyalty is with Uniontown.”
“Some of them actually had to relocate to other areas like Masontown, reluctantly,” Vanek said.
She said that the ministry helped six residents with security deposits and more with small appliances.
Fayette County Community Action Agency (FCCAA) Director of Customer Service Rita Masi said FCCAA received $54,638 as of Friday to aid those who need help.
Disaster relief committee members noted unseasonably snowy weather has delayed the roofing element of recovery efforts. They are focusing on connecting with those who have not yet been served or may not have known about a multi-agency resource center held at FCCAA in February to coordinate recovery planning for them.
“We want to make sure if there’s anybody out there that we haven’t talked to that needs help, that we touch base with them,” Fayette County Emergency Management Agency Director Roy Shipley said. “We don’t want to leave anybody hanging out there.”
Uniontown Emergency Management Agency coordinator Greg Crossley said that a U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) six-day disaster loan outreach center offering at the city fire department yielded 20 low-interest loan applications, including five from businesses.
About 70 properties in Uniontown and North Union Township each were posted as uninhabitable, city and township Engineer John Over said.
Only two of 30 uninhabitable postings among Millview Street properties were removed as of March 23.
“Being so close to complete destruction, it just blew our minds,” Vanek said.
INSPIRED TO KEEP GOING
No property was closer to where the destruction began than Otto Brick Company. The tornado touched down near the intersection of Phillipi Avenue and Pittsburgh Street next to the business at 6:43 p.m. on Feb. 15.
The tornado destroyed the warehouse and back offices.
“The structural engineer said it looks like a total loss,” owner Catherine Gabriel said.
An insurance decision could be six months to a year away, she said. The now dilapidated portion of the building with cinder blocks and other debris strewn about will have to remain the way it is in the meantime, Operations Manager Jason Chiado indicated.
“There were times I did want to give up,” Gabriel said.
Customers rallied around the company, she said, recalling some leaving boxes behind to let the company store supplies in for free and helping move materials and put displays back up.
“Isn’t that the best?” Gabriel asked.
Customer support has inspired her to keep going.
Officials have said that no one was killed or critically injured by the tornado, and Otto Brick was one of many close calls. Gabriel said if the tornado had hit two hours earlier, she and other employees could have been claimed by the disaster, since the ceiling caved in on her office first.
Instead, Otto Brick has stayed in business, with Chiado stationing himself in a stable portion of the building in the cold to greet customers in the parking lot before the company opened up a mobile unit last Friday.
“I love Uniontown,” Gabriel said. “I believe in its residents.”
”IT JUST FELT LIKE HOME”
Lori Hough also found a place she can believe in.
Through a list of landlords provided by FCCAA, Hough found the first house she’s walked into that felt like home.
“A peaceful feeling came over me when I walked into that house,” Hough said. “It’s been a long time since I had that feeling.”
She signed the lease for her and her daughter’s new Uniontown area home April 5.
Now the only time Hough has to see the Millview Street side of town is when she visits her sister-in-law. But she won’t have to drive past her tornado-wrecked home anymore.
“I’ll never have to see it again,” Hough said.
Hough is hoping to be moved in by this week. When that’s done, Hough will have truly moved on.
“When I walked in, it just felt like home,” Hough said. “I don’t know why. It’s nothing that reminds me of any previous home I’ve had.
“It just felt like home.”
Those who wish to donate to local tornado relief efforts may send a check made out to Fayette County Community Action Agency, indicating “disaster relief” in the memo line. Checks can be mailed to the agency, attention disaster relief, at 108 Beeson Blvd., Uniontown, Pa., 15401. Persons looking for additional assistance may call FCCAA at 724-437-6050 option 1 then option 2 to talk to someone about what assistance is available.
St. Vincent de Paul at 70 N. Mt. Vernon Ave. is accepting donations of gently used appliances and furniture, particularly electric (not gas) stoves, dressers and refrigerators. Donors may call 724-439-9188 x211 in advance and ask for Roberta Sanders.