Comstock Park neighbors: Tornado damage taking too long to repair

ALPINE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — Four months after a tornado tore through northern Kent County, some homes still have particle board windows, some are still missing siding and some are too damaged to occupy.

Jon Jenkins’s family captured the tornado on cellphone video as they were driving home on Aug. 24.

“We are in the middle of a (expletive) tornado,” Jenkins yelled as a storm of papers, debris and trash cans flew by.

His doorbell camera also captured the EF1 tornado, with winds hitting 110 miles per hour, causing $140,000 in damage to his family’s home on Sandtrap Drive NE.

“We’ve been out since the day after the tornado,” Jenkins said on Thursday.

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His is one of four families that still haven’t returned to their homes in the neighborhood off Pine Island Drive near 7 Mile Road NE.

The wind burst through a downstairs window of his home, cracking studs in the adjoining walls, then poured through the house, blowing out an upstairs window. Glass was everywhere: in the walls, the floors, the furniture.

“Our comforter blew off our bed and we never found it. Blew right out the window,” he said.

The dishes from that day are still left in the dishwasher.

But crews are making progress on his home, in part because he’s supervising the work himself, he said.

“You can see in the living room, new cabinets, new paint in here. Our furniture came this week,” he showed News 8 during a tour of his home.

But siding is missing on other homes, particle board covers some windows and garage doors, and one home is still waiting for a roof.

“It changed the neighborhood,” Jenkins said. “It changed all of us. I mean, our kids were displaced. We’ve got people living in places that they’re not used to.”

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Around the corner, crews on Thursday were replacing torn-off siding on Nate Weber’s home.

“We were hoping that things would go quickly, repairs would be done pretty fast, but we also understand that construction can take time,” Weber said.

Neighbors blamed mostly insurance companies for delays.

“Some people have insurance issues, trying to get the insurance company to agree to things,” Jenkins said.

“It’s very frustrating,” said one resident, who didn’t want to be identified. “The insurance companies are taking their time. I can only speak on my behalf. I’m fighting with them right now on getting the rest of my house sided.”

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The storm tore apart Nick Buursma’s ranch-style home on Sandtrap, shattering windows, blowing in the back porch door, pushing a wall off its foundation, lifting the roof. He said it caused up to $400,000 in damages. He’s now living in an apartment and is not sure when he’ll be able to move back in.

“A lot of the neighbors have had issues with insurance companies and their timing,” Buursma said. “It’s taken a long time to get responses, and a long time to get money.

“Now that we’re finally starting to see progress, the bad taste in my mouth is starting to leave, but for the first three months it was maddening not knowing anything.”

Travis Burns, an owner of the local Paul Davis restoration franchise, said his company is repairing five homes in the neighborhood. He also blamed insurance companies for waiting months to pay out claims. He said they sent in claims in early September. The earliest payout didn’t come until the week before Thanksgiving, three months after the tornado, he said. One claim, he said, wasn’t paid until this month.

He said he expects to finish work on some of the most heavily damaged homes by next summer.

Residents are hoping all the work will be done by then, at which point, they’ll celebrate with a neighborhood party.

“When you come in (to the neighborhood), you do see changes,” Jenkins said. “There are some things that are happening — some houses getting siding; you can see a Dumpster over here; other houses with siding; the house that had the roof blown off, they have trusses sitting in their front yard now, so things are starting.”

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