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A devastating EF3 tornado with winds up to 140 mph hit the Appleton area on Monday.
It leaves people without power under boil water advisories, curfews and pleas to shelter
in place to keep roads clear.
People are in shelters as donations pour in, all as communities try to pick up the pieces
of their homes and lives.
This week, Governor Tony Evers declared a state of emergency and activated the National
Guard to ensure every available resource is deployed in response.
The City of Manasha took a direct hit from the tornado as it moved south from Appleton.
Manasha Mayor Austin Hammond joins us now and Mayor, thanks very much for being here.
Thank you for having me.
How are you and your city doing right now?
We're doing all right.
There is a huge influx of helping hands over the last couple of days.
We have a volunteer operation happening at the former UW Old Fox City's campus and
volunteer Fox City's is running that and yesterday along we had 1200 volunteers, which
has been incredible and we've been blessed by neighboring municipalities coming to help
us.
They were a utility company despite the damage from the storm is remarkably significant.
People have lost their homes, people have lost their businesses, public infrastructure
power out, our water plants were hit and we're reliant on the city of Nina to help us do
that.
And as was mentioned earlier, some of the areas of water service are under water boil advisory
right now.
So it's been a difficult and challenging and trying week.
The folks here at the City of Manasha are strong and resilient and are making the most
of it.
So even in the most darkest and difficult moments, people are choosing to work out for
each other and find ways to lift each other up.
And it's also been incredible to see the public sector, private sector, faith communities
all come together to uplift our community.
So it's really been truly incredible to see people come together in this really difficult
moment.
But it's incredibly sad how much damage has happened to the storm.
Yeah, I wanted to ask the pictures tell the story, right?
But what was the scale of this?
How many homes and businesses and how much infrastructure was flattened or damaged?
We're still assessing that actively as time goes on.
So we have crews out assessing homes right now and taking them on if they're habitable
or not.
So that's something that is ongoing and actively being loved at.
So despite this enormous property damage, how surprising is it that no one was killed?
I mean, it's a miracle.
It's truly remarkable.
I think some of it has to do with time of day in the middle of the week.
Thankfully, many folks were at work.
And then I think notifications that were given to get people ample notice of the storm to
get into safe locations was another part of it.
But it really is a miracle that nobody to this point in time, there's no fatalities
because of the storm.
What is the state at week's end here of restoration of services and cleanup?
Yeah.
So in the city of Manasseh, we have Manasseh utilities, a local utility company, and they
open a storm at a great amount of power through our community.
So near downtown and throughout the site of the city, and it's going to take quite a
while yet for restoration of power to be done collectively throughout the entire city,
but they're making tremendous progress working very quick.
So that has been very, very encouraging to see.
And then right now, we're in operation of clearing debris throughout the city of Manasseh,
so we've contracted contractors to come in and help our departments remove some of that
debris.
And earlier this week, there's a state of emergency, excuse me, declared by Governor
120 Evers and what that we've activated the National Guard.
We requested to activate the National Guard and was granted by the governor and National
Guard are here today, and they're going to start with traffic control and things like
that to help us go in more specific sections of our community.
So those contractors could do that important work to remove the debris, so we're actively
getting as much of the debris out as possible, utilities are working tirelessly to get power
back on, and in addition to our first responders, law enforcement have just been doing an incredible
job making sure people are taking care of and provided for, and I just found a ton of
volunteer efforts to make sure that we're providing people and pulling shelters, places
to recharge their foam, have a meal, have water, it's just all hands on deck and really collectively
making sure that our community is provided for.
I know you're doing all of that work, and it's early, but do you have any ballpark damage
estimates yet?
I don't at this time, just because the assessment is ongoing, there is a great and significant
amount of damage with the assessment process, and this is continuing to progress.
How long do you think it will take Manasha to recover?
I think we have a long road ahead of us.
I think there will be much, much work to do for days, weeks, and possibly months and
some aspects of it.
I mean the damage of the storm is devastating, and I can't stress enough just how much loss
there has been in my heart goes out to those residents, and I see them, and I hear them
hand, we're in this together, we need to take it a day at a time, but I think the important
thing to know and circumstances like this is we need to do one step at a time in order
to activate the next steps.
So right now, making sure people are safe, making sure people have those immediate basic
needs, and then making sure we have roads clear, so contractors and our crews and all
of the municipalities that are coming in to help us can do that in part and work to clear
out our roads, build back up our utility, and then the next phases will come in where
people can get their garbage out and other things like that, so it's going to be a long
road ahead of us.
I anticipate many weeks yet.
What does your community need most now?
I think the community right now needs most.
I would probably say just that being able to have the opportunity to have that work done
that is so needed of removing the debris, and I would just put a mask out that people
are not coming to the gawk while people are at some of the darkest moments of their life
trying to clean up their home, clean up the debris, when people are coming and congesting
our streets, it's making it difficult for the work that needs to be done, to be done effectively.
So if you're coming to Manasha to be a helping hand, please go visit volunteer Fox City's
website and that has all the volunteer opportunities there, based out of the old UWO Fox.
Fox City's campus off of Midway, we would love to have you come volunteer, what we need.
We need collaboration and partnership, and I would ask for people to watch the news and
look at pictures that way of what has been happening in our community, but right now
I would just say we really need the ability to let the work be done, that needs to be
done, whether their volunteer is doing incredible work, the National Guard, our emergency management
first responders, department of public works, utility company, the contract of work, the
sooner all of that could happen quickly and efficiently without interruption, like worker
we can kind of expedite this process.
All right, Mayor Austin Hammond, thanks very much and really good luck to you.
Thank you very much for having me.
Have you gotten much sleep?
Not a lot, no, I'm not going to much sleep, but I just, it's really difficult to know
the pain that so many people are going through, and you know, it's really hard to just wrap
your head around how much our community has gone through this week, but it's really
encouraging at the same time, just the love that people have for each other.
It's a weird moment, I guess, is what I'm trying to articulate, there's so much love
and there's so much goodwill and people looking out for each other, but yeah, there's so much
pain and there's so much loss.
It's just kind of a weird space to be in.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Well thank you again for taking time out and talking with us.
Yeah, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Okay, all right, again, good luck.
Thank you.