VINTON, Iowa (KCRG-TV9) – It has been one year since an EF-2 tornado ripped through an apartment building in Vinton.
One of the Karr Apartment residents Paula Nelson just moved into a new apartment a few weeks ago. She was forced to move out after the tornado.
Every day she’s reminded of the tornado that flipped her life upside down.
“We heard a large wind come up and we though ‘oh it’s just wind,’ and all of a sudden our upstairs neighbors came running down the steps and started knocking on our doors,” Nelson said.
That’s because the new apartment she moved into is still next door to her old building.
“You look at it and just remember that time,” Nelson said.
In a year’s time, not much has changed with the building. The tornado blew off the roof of the building. People’s belongings are still sitting untouched on the second floor of the apartments.
Nelson said the people who lived up there only had 15 minutes to grab some belongings because the foundation wasn’t safe.
TV9 was on the scene back then and spoke to a man who lived on the second floor.
“I looked out the window at five until 5 a.m. Two minutes later everything came through my window and the roof came down on me,” Joe Radcliffe said.
Nelson says she believes everyone found new places to live. Now she just wants the destroyed building to come down.
The Vinton mayor tells TV9 the landlord of the apartment complex is finally planning to demolish the building within the next few months. The landlord did a presentation at the last city council meeting. He told the council he had to wait for the insurance to company to evaluate the claim.
Nelson says she’s not too worried living in the same spot a tornado hit.
“The old wives tales that you hear that it won’t happen for another 100 years so I’m hoping that’s true,” Nelson said.
by Samantha Myers
July 15, 2017
