SPENCER — The town of Spencer looks nothing like the place two FEMA veterans visited 18 years ago.
On Monday, former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director James Lee Witt and former FEMA Regional Director and U.S. Senate candidate Rick Weiland returned to Spencer for the first time since 2002, four years after a tornado decimated the small town about 20 miles east of Mitchell in 1998.
It was a breezy afternoon when Witt and Weiland arrived in Spencer, but the winds couldn’t come close to the 220 mph winds that killed six people and annihilated most of the town’s 190 buildings just before the two FEMA officials arrived on scene 18 years ago.
Witt, who guided the agency through 348 disasters over eight years, said the Spencer tornado was on the higher end of his list of worst disasters while in office. Despite the vicious tornado that left the town in ruins nearly two decades ago, Witt arrived in Spencer to see a town on the rebound.
Aside from a monument outside the town’s post office, there are few signs a tornado ever rolled through Spencer on the night of May 30, 1998. But Witt noticed one slight difference.
“Well, there’s more trees,” Witt said.
It was the pair’s first trip back to Spencer since Weiland’s 2002 campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, but Witt and Weiland’s visit was more than a trip down memory lane.
By Evan Hendershot on Jun 6, 2016 at 6:52 p.m
Photo: KELOLAND TV
