The Pilot News - Rebuilding Nappanee: One year later

The event — held at the NorthWood High School gym with guests speakers meterologist Mike Hoffman and Nappanee Mayor Larry Thompson — was for residents to hear about the city’s journey to recovery after the Oct. 18, 2007 tornado.
All members of the community were invited to a special fireworks display after the program.
“There’s just been an amazing response and we want to remember that evening,” she said. “It was a traumatic loss for many people in our community and with the tremendous loss came a great outpouring. The word community means something different to all of us now.”
Saturday’s events followed a recent gathering of residents in the Blackstone subdivision.
There, it was all about tomatoes, corn, beef, onions and community — some of the key ingredients for the perfect pot of Blackstone Soup.
Residents at the small subdivision on Nappanee’s east end gathered to celebrate the restoration of their homes and of their lives prior to the one-year anniversary of the tornado that left much of their neighborhood in rubble.
A tradition began several years ago for the residents to gather in September for Blackstone soup, based on the story “Stone Soup” in which different guests brought different ingredients for a special bowl of soup.
The scene was very different from the one that unfolded less than a year before. The houses are again pristine, the yards well-trimmed, though the memory of that night will forever remain.
“We’re glad to be back,” resident Tom McClung said. “It was quite an ordeal. It’s hard to believe it’s been a year already.”
Resident Roxy Elphick remembers the anxiety of various neighbors who were on vacation when the storm hit.
“Within the first hour or two they were calling me,” she said. “They heard it on the news and wanted to know if their houses were still there.”
Residents Lee and Emerson Minnich were one of those couples.
“By the time we got home it was Friday night and dark,” Lee said. “Everyone had the same situation, trying to get out what they could.”
Elphick laughed as she remembered her neighbor, Kay Ahrns, who had been telling her about a weather radio she had purchased earlier that spring.
“She said ‘if we have a tornado I’ll call you,’” she said.
Ahrns lived up to her promise, calling long enough to warn of the coming twister then take cover right before it destroyed her house.
Jim and Pam Kintigh were in their kitchen when their roof collapsed on them.
“I can’t imagine what these people do in a hurricane where it goes on for hours and what we had lasted 30 seconds,” Jim said. “We’re just thankful for God’s protection.
This attitude comes after the family lost their remaining possessions in the fire that destroyed Graber’s Flooring Studio Jan. 19.