Knox County's rare tornado displaced Lovell Crossing renters. Many still don't have homes

Heather Wilson marked the milestones of her children's growth with tape on the wall rather than pen at her Lovell Crossing apartment in West Knoxville. It was one of the small concessions that made the apartment a home, and it was theirs for seven years.

Without much warning two months ago, their life and home were torn apart by a rare and powerful EF2 tornado, the first tornado ever to hit Knox County in the month of August.

The tornado and its immediate aftermath were just the first challenge. When the apartment terminated their leases under state law on Sept. 5, Lovell Crossing residents were tossed into a tight housing market where the only units available could run $500 to $700 more per month than their previous homes.

Many former Lovell Crossing residents have yet to find a new place, staying in a series of hotels and short-term rentals, or on the couches of family and friends. Some have been forced to leave Knoxville entirely.

Wilson, a single mother of three, is still looking for a place to live two months after the Aug. 7 storm. The morning after the tornado, she went back to work as a teacher at Bearden Middle School for the first day of classes in Knox County.

But from Aug. 7 on, she had what felt like an additional full-time job: filing insurance claims, searching for a new apartment and tracking down lost mail.

“It’s been an absolute nightmare, and we’re still trying to pick up the pieces and move forward,” Wilson said. “I want to get into housing and be able to settle in with my kids. It’s been two months of unknown and taking it a few days at a time.”

Like all residents of the damaged apartment buildings, Wilson was assigned two six-hour shifts to pack up her home and move out. Because the shifts were during work hours, she took her two personal days to join a group of seven or eight people, including kind strangers, who helped her pack the family's items into two crammed storage units. Her family has been living out of suitcases.

The apartment complex took the biggest hit as the tornado made a path along Yarnell Road and Bob Gray Road between the Hardin Valley and Cedar Bluff neighborhoods. Straight line winds up to 130 miles per hour brought down trees and power lines across West Knox County, causing $3.7 million in damaged utilities and power loss to 74,615 residents, said KUB officials.

At Lovell Crossing, leases were terminated at 11 buildings beset by structural damage and mold. Property manager Ashley Cisson told Knox News that rebuilding was underway at the complex, but declined to comment further.

Hundreds of displaced residents must now find new homes while housing affordability in Knoxville is at a 40-year low, according to a report from East Tennessee Realtors. The association said the average rent across apartments is $1,439 a month, far higher than what residents said they paid at Lovell Crossing.

For Wilson, help has come in the form of discounted rates on storage units and an Airbnb where she and her kids stayed for nine days. Mostly, she has paid out of pocket for their expenses and is still waiting to get reimbursed by her insurance company. Her family is living in a corporate apartment unit until they can find a place in their school zone and budget.

“We’re pretty flexible. We can make a new start, but we’re still not there yet. We’re still stuck in the middle and even though it’s been two months, we’re still in the thick of trying to navigate our way out of it,” Wilson said. “If there’s one thing my kids and I are, we are very resilient.”

Some former residents have been forced out of the city by an inability to secure housing. Amy Culp had to get permission from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to teach her Japanese classes online in the spring so she can live with family in Georgia and save up for a return to Knoxville next fall. In the meantime, she is staying with a friend.

Culp struggled to find a place she could afford on a nontenure-track salary. She had an agreement with a nearby apartment for a lease to begin Sept. 18 on a unit that was smaller and more expensive than her Lovell Crossing apartment. That agreement fell through, and she said the apartment did not return her deposit.

In her native Florida, where weather disasters are much more common than in East Tennessee, she said local agencies and communities are better prepared to support those displaced by emergencies. She might have also had an easier time finding an apartment there.

"I still get emails about apartments in Tallahassee, and I can get a really nice apartment in a really nice area with lots of amenities for $1,200 a month. But I'd have to settle for a mediocre apartment here for $1,000 and I'm scared to walk around at night and I have no washing machine," Culp said. "That's the kind of difference you're dealing with and I just don't know why it's so expensive."

Culp lived in Honolulu during graduate school, where the cost of living is much higher than in Knoxville. Still, she made more money as a graduate assistant on the G.I. bill than as a full-time lecturer at UT. When she's home in the spring, she will have time to get back on her feet and look for a new apartment.

"It'll just be really good, I think, for me to recover mentally and financially from the whole situation," Culp said.

On Sept. 27, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced public assistance funds would be available in 10 East Tennessee counties affected by the Aug. 7 storm. The funds will go to reimburse local governments and utilities like KUB that covered costly repairs.

FEMA also offers individual assistance, though it has not granted it for this disaster, said Sarah DeLozier, operations officer at the Knoxville-Knox County Emergency Management Agency. The agency prepared preliminary damage assessments for individual assistance and will execute a broad public information campaign if FEMA declares county residents are eligible, DeLozier said.

For now, the main form of assistance to Lovell Crossing residents is their renter's insurance policies, which can cost as little as $10 a month and cover damaged or stolen property and loss of use in the event of widespread damage.

Renter's insurance has not proved to be a quick and painless fix. Rachel McCausland lived in a top-floor unit that was inundated with water and estimates that 95% of her belongings were destroyed by rain and mold. Now, she has to deal with insurance claims.

"They're telling me that if I can't provide receipts for some of my belongings that they can deny my claims on more expensive items, and I don't have receipts because I lost everything," McCausland said. "I'm in limbo right now because they're not wanting to cover things."

McCausland has moved in with her partner, alleviating the need to find housing, but she's lost her mail and all her belongings except a few plastic bins of holiday decorations. Most of the tasks associated with recovering her life must happen during work hours, when she is a subcontractor at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Her insurance company has covered some of what she lost, but she must meticulously prove she owned all she lost, and that burden of proof is an emotional burden, too.

"I went into the mall and I kept seeing things I'm like, 'Oh, I own that. Now I don't own that anymore.' It's really devastating to think about," McCausland said. "Some of my items can never be replaced. My grandfather was a carpenter, and I can never replace the things that he built that were family heirlooms. There was no saving them."

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology. Phone 423-637-0878. Email daniel.dassow@knoxnews.com.

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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Knoxville tornado that hit Lovell Crossing leaves residents displaced