Remembering, Rebuilding, Surviving: A look at two years of recovery from the Jan. 12, 2023 tornado
Published 9:58 am Monday, January 13, 2025
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On Sunday, it will be two years since the tornado came through the city of Selma, even the outskirts of Selma, disturbing and destroying the homes of many, including businesses throughout the city.
As many as 340 structures were destroyed, 360 structures had major damage and 700 to 800 hundred people within the city got displaced, said Jay Gilmer, Chairman of the Long-Term Recovery Committee.
Families during this severe tornado, that day, on Jan. 12, 2023, lost power, their homes to the entirety, some lost their homes partially, their cars and many were left with nowhere to go and no one to turn to which led from hours to days of the three R’s: Remembering what Selma was, Recovering where Selma currently is, and rectifying the things lost which led to the city as a whole trying to rebuild.
“As we are about to hit the second anniversary of the tornado, I am definitely very proud of the work that our team and our community partners have done over the last two years,” Gilmer said. “We have helped hundreds of families in small or big ways by helping them recover from the storm. But, there is certainly still work to be done as well. We still have volunteer groups who are in town serving the residents of Selma and believe it or not, Sheronda Armstrong, who is our Disaster Response Outreach Worker, still gets phone calls from folks across the county who is still in need of some form of assistance.”
Now, two years later, several houses have been demolished that were torn up doing that time but many that were damaged are still here, and the remnants of pieces of wood are still laid out in some parts of the city on houses, near houses and blue tarps are still on rooftops, just holding the pieces of the damaged places together that the tornado hit several years ago.
Gilmer said the organization as a whole focuses on individual assistance working with homeowners and renters across the community who were impacted from the tornado and said he works actively to identify those with the greatest needs and addressing those needs whether its repair work, replacement of furniture or helping families with rental deposits to get into a new home.
Several businesses in the city like Firestone, George Paint and Body shop and many more were deeply impacted as well by the tornado. The Firestone many once knew, had to be demolished to nothing and rebuilt brand new a year later. As far as George’s Paint and Body shop, their building was severely impacted which led to a rebuild taking place in the same location on 1215 J.L. Chestnut Jr. Blvd in Selma.
Even historic churches that’s been in the city for years had to get demolished as well due to the extensive damage that occurred and now several areas in the community are just simply empty patches of land, that once had preserved so much history.
Like so many others impacted by the tornado, The United Way of Selma was another organization deeply affected by the outcome as well.
Executive Director Jeff Cothran said the during the day of the tornado, he was leaving out from his office for lunch, not realizing that the tornado was actively hitting grounds in the city of Selma and once he got word, he stayed home and waited until the next day to return back to his office, that’s when he realized how much damage was really done.
“The next day I went by there, all the windows were blown out and everything,” Cothran said.
Just like every one else in the city impacted by the tornado, Cohran said he had to also call the insurance company to get repairs started on their organization’s building while still at the same time, offering a helping hand to those in need as well.”
Cohran even told Selma Times Journal instead of him and his team going back into their building as repairs were actively underway, they decided to turn their building into a living facility during that time, for those who came out of town to help during the recovery process of the tornado.
Still two years later, Cohran said he is still using his home office to work and the current United Way of Selma building is still a hub for those actively helping with the recovery of tornado and said those who are in need of assistance, can reach out to Armstong so she can personally funnel their case to the right organization to provide them with help that they need..
Despite the disheartening change within the community regarding the structural buildings, Gilmer said since the tornado, the organization has seen several individuals including families who might have lost everything during that time, get back to a stronger stage to rebuild through the help of their organization and their community partners.
“Through our partners, we were fortunate to be able to do a full rebuild of their homes, literally they get to start over and get them a brand-new, well-built home,” Gilmer said. “Between Samaritan’s Purse and the Mennonite Disaster Services and our groups, we have rebuilt from ground up about 14 homes, and we have dozens and dozens of major repair jobs from roofs, major siding work to material work that not only got them back to where they were, in kind of pre-storm condition, but in many cases, just based off of the workmanship and the quality of work our groups have been doing, in most cases, they are actually in a better situation than they were before the storm.”
Gilmer said homeowners who have been helped through their program have been extremely grateful and wonderful to work with and people who have received the assistance from the organization he said has been receptive to it.
“We are just grateful to have the support, particularly by those outside groups that have chosen to come in on their dime and their own time to do this so, that’s kind of the best part that we get to do: is handle over the keys to somebody’s home or give them back their furniture that they lost and put it back in or give them new furniture so they can be living back like they were, or even better place than where they were even before the storm.”
Gilmer said it’s been a real blessing to them as an organization, for sure and he said they actively plan to work to help the community restore their homes until the cases run out, the funding runs out or the volunteer labor runs out.
“But, we are going to keep marching forward as long as we can to help our community recover,” Gilmer said.
For more information about the storm recovery group, contact Sheronda Armstrong at 334-349-4981.
