On Monday afternoon, a tornado leveled many homes and businesses in Wisconsin’s Fox Cities. The tornado’s 20-minute journey through Menasha, Neenah and Appleton destroyed much of what was in its 12-mile path.
Gov. Tony Evers declared a state of emergency in response to the destruction.
WUWM’s Eddie Morales checked in with Outagamie County Executive Tom Nelson Tuesday afternoon to learn more.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Eddie Morales: Was anyone hurt?
Tom Nelson: We don't have reports of people who were hurt. We have people that are on the ground doing assessments. Earlier today, first responders in Menasha and Fox Crossing were going door-to-door to make sure that people are OK. I cannot stress just how devastating this has been. I've not seen anything on this order since I did volunteer work down in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina 20 years ago. So it's a pretty big deal. It's huge.
Can you describe some of the scenes that you're seeing?
I mean, there are entire swaths of neighborhoods that are just completely leveled. There are road crews, there are other people, businesses that are out there just trying to clear roadways so that if there is an emergency, that we can at least have emergency response vehicles coming in and helping people. I think that this recovery effort is going to take a long time.
How much damage did the storm cause?
The cost of this destruction is going to be a really big number. But having gone through these disasters and disaster responses, recoveries, including the Shiocton flood just a couple months ago, getting a number, it will take time. This is not something where you look around, you eyeball it, you put down a number and mail it in to FEMA and hope to get a check back. It's a very particular drawn-out process.
For us in Shiocton — and that was mainly localized in one community — from the time that the flooding hit Shiocton in the middle of April, we had our application to the state and the state to FEMA within a month and a half, which I'm told is a record. I don't know if it's going to be moving that quickly. Time will tell, but it is way too early to come up with a good number.
We know that in Outagamie County, the threshold for aid is about $1 million. Statewide, it's about $12 million. If you were to eyeball things, I mean, $12 million is probably a couple of neighborhoods in Menasha. So, I think statewide that we're going to reach that number, but how much that is going to be and how much aid that's going to translate into, that's going to take some time.
I think the focus right now has been and should be immediate response and recovery. There are a lot of people who of course want to pitch in, who want to help. I've had a lot of people from New London and Shiocton calling me asking how they can help in Winnebago County because there were a lot of people from Menasha, Fox Crossing — they came up to Shiocton in the spring to help with sandbagging, maybe open up their homes and so forth. So there is a very, very strong culture of community.
What are the best ways for people to contribute to aid efforts?
We don't yet have a community donation bank up. I expect that to be up sooner rather than later. Volunteer Fox Cities is organizing all the volunteers. Right now there aren't specific tasks and things that they need people to do. A lot of this is controlling foot traffic, keeping people out of Menasha so that they can begin the early stages of cleaning up.
