Rudd looks back one year after tornado strike

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

It’s been a year since an unseasonable winter tornado tore through the city of Rudd, and life has largely returned to normal in the community.

“I would say every house that is fixable is fixed,” said Mayor Jeff Buland, reflecting on the progress that the community has seen over the last 12 months.

This time last year the Rudd community was still recovering after an evening storm, generating an EF1 tornado, struck the town on Wednesday, Dec. 15. The tornado destroyed several buildings, toppled trees, and spread debris across the city.

The next morning more than 140 volunteers descended upon the community in the wake of the storm to lend a hand, or heavy machinery, to clean up the damage. Buland recalls that while volunteers were asked to coordinate at the fire station and split into teams, a lot of people never made it that far, finding something to do or someone to help as they entered the city.

“They’d see some guys with a chainsaw and they’d just stop,” said Buland.

Between local residents and area service providers like Alliant Energy and Redcan Sanitation, the work to clean up the community was swiftly performed. The clean-up efforts were so effective that Buland says it didn’t take very long for most of the community to recover.

“Once we got into summer it was almost like normal,” said Buland. “We had so much help and we’ve had so many people step-up and do things that it was just like a normal year.”

Since then, some of the lost homes have been rebuilt and the city is working to come back stronger. One of the most notable improvements the city has seen since the storm is the instillation of a new warning siren, donated by Goddard Enterprises of Oklahoma.

Last year, the city was using an old storm siren that had to be manually operated via a switch on a pole. Firefighter Tyler Hicks braved the storm and stood outside, physically holding down the button until the winds ripped it out of his hands. Fortunately, Hicks was not injured.

“We got very, very lucky,” said Buland.

With a new siren installed, warnings can be remotely activated from the fire station or from the 911 office in Charles City.

“That was a pretty huge deal for us,” said Buland.

While much of the damage from the storm has been repaired, there are still big projects ahead. In January, the city’s library board will be presenting a plan from an architect to rebuild the library, which was destroyed in the storm.

Likewise, the Rudd Historical Society is planning its own comeback. While most of their historical items were recovered and are being stored at the old high school, the group is seeking out contractors to rebuild their own building.

Still, Buland is happy to go into the holiday season with his town in a much better situation than it was the previous year. From borrowed machinery to donated pizza, Buland is grateful to everybody that has chipped in to help Rudd recover.

“There is no way to thank everybody,” said Buland. “It was just amazing.”