It’s been a little more than a month since an EF-3 tornado touched down in Oak Grove, damaging hundreds of homes.
Montie Tripp, who has several rental properties in the area says many of them were destroyed.
“Coming down here, most of these roofs were mostly still in tact, but walls were knocked over, just total devastation,” Tripp said.
Right up the road, Vaun Reader says he’s lived here his entire life, and this was his first time experiencing the aftermath of a tornado.
“I don't know, just unbelievable,” Reader said. “That's amazing to me that no one got killed.”
While the damage came quickly, the fixing up is taking time.
“We got a long way to go and as you can see there’s been several that have been torn down,” Tripp said. “I really can’t say enough for the community and just everybody that came out and helped, not only from manual labor but just assistance and moral support. It was really phenomenal.”
Many houses have been patched up and are slowly being worked on thanks to several volunteers.
“It was disbelief to start with and now it's thankful that nothing else happened,” Reader said.
New Life Church helped organize many of the volunteer efforts.
Church leaders say there will be another service day where volunteers can help.
It will be May 20th from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, you can contact the church at 816-690-3514.
