Clean-Up Continues After Tornado Damages Homes In Rochester Hills Sub
ROCHESTER HILLS (WWJ) - The sound of wood chippers at work can be heard in the Fairview Farms subdivision -- the site of a Sunday morning tornado that did damage to roughly 30 homes.
The tornado, which residents say lasted less than one minute, cut a mile-long path of destruction that was 150 yards wide.
Russ George with the Rochester Hills Department of public services was working at the site of one of the damaged homes.
"Today we are starting a real big push bringing in any department hand we can, every truck, every machine, everything we've got ... we will be back until Friday," George told WWJ's Jon Hewett.
A giant blue tarp now covers the damaged roof on one home on Grandview Street. Windows throughout the damaged homes remain boarded up and dozens of downed spruce and maple trees are slowly being removed - all from the tornado that residents say was in and out of their neighborhood in less than a minute.
"For a second - it felt like it was an explosion," said Laura Benevidas. "Water was coming in each outlet from the lighting and I had just gone to get a bucket for this last bedroom and I opened it - I'm like - 'oh, we don't even have a ceiling, we don't even have a roof!'"
Benevidas says now the plan is to find a rental in order to rebuild and eventually return home.
"They are basically emptying the house, they are having engineers come over to look through the house to see what needs to be replaced - they are checking all the windows, they are checking everything. They just have to check the integrity of the home and then they'll put together a plan and start reconstruction."
