SHIAWASSEE COUNTY, Mich. — Dozens of families are still out of their homes one week after two tornadoes ripped through Shiawassee County.
The twister's 125 mph winds last Thursday did a lot of damage.
Now the entire community is coming together to help.
"The number of homes that are damaged have increased daily. We started out, I think there were 21 homes. Now, an excess of 90 homes that have been damaged as a result of this tornado," Shiawassee County Sheriff Brian Begole said.
Eight days ago, two tornados swept through Shiawassee County, leaving dozens of people homeless and unsure of how they were going to rebuild their lives.
"Move forward. We're looking at the long term. Ninety-two percent of our community has insurance so we're trying to focus on the 8 percent that don't have enough to manage their repairs to their homes or the long-term rebuilding of getting them back into their homes," said Trent Atkins, director of Emergency Management for Shiawassee County.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of repairs are needed and the community and local relief facilities have stepped in to help.
"We forgo all administrative fees. It's an emergency, so we need to act like it's an emergency. So that means every penny of every dollar donated designated to this is going to go to help with recovery," said United Way of Genesee County CEO Jamie Gaskin. "Well, we need the community. We expect that this is going to take us, we're probably going to need a couple hundred thousand dollars to be able to help these folks."
Despite the hefty damages, the community is staying strong in their relief efforts.
"United Way is really in a position where we have disasters across the nation and our local communities step up because really we are our local community," Gaskin said. "We're probably about 80 percent complete with that debris management. We expect that by Sunday we should have probably 99 percent or more complete."
If you're interested in making a donation to help these families, visit the United Way of Genesee County website [unitedwaygenesee.org].
If you want to directly drop off a check, go to the Shiawassee County Sheriff's Office with the check made payable to the United Way of Genesee County, including in the memo that it's for the Shiawassee County tornado relief.
