photo by: Kathy Hanks

Karen Pendleton stands in the living room of her house on Wednesday, July 24, 2019. She and her husband, John, are the owners of Pendleton’s Country Market, 1446 East 1850 Road, which was heavily damaged by a tornado on May 28, 2019.

Two months after a massive tornado ripped through Douglas and Leavenworth counties, owners of homes and businesses in the path of the 32-mile, EF-4 twister are realizing how much patience and determination rebuilding takes — and they’re seeing progress.

Excavating equipment continues clearing debris at Free State Growers, 12819 198th St., a longtime Linwood business that took a direct hit from the May 28 tornado.

“It still looks devastating, but we have made huge strides,” said Mark Illausky, owner and president of the company, which is one of the largest house-plant suppliers in the Midwest.

Trying to run a business out of a damaged building has also been a challenge for John and Karen Pendleton at Pendleton’s Country Market, 1446 East 1850 Road.

“Recovering a business from a tornado is a whole other dimension,” Karen Pendleton said. The tornado hit at the peak of their season.

“The business has to continue; it’s vital to make payroll, but at the same time we needed to clean up and rebuild. But we needed to sell as many plants, flowers and produce as we could,” she said.

The tornado was the second most expensive tornado in Douglas County history, after the one on June 19, 1981, which killed one person, injured 33 people and caused $70 million in damage in today’s dollars. The county has estimated the structural damage from this year’s tornado at $22 million. In Douglas County alone, it destroyed 13 homes; caused major damage to 29; caused minor damage to 42; and affected 11 more, according to Douglas County Emergency Management. In addition, two commercial businesses were damaged along with one home office, and at least 17 people were injured.

Keeping a business afloat

Earlier on May 28, employees at Free State Growers had planted several thousand mums. That evening the tornado destroyed not only the mums but almost all 10 acres of production houses.

Currently, business goes on even as crews continue to clear the rubble. Employees are helping to clean up, as well as doing the regular work of seasonal planting at the wholesale production greenhouses. Since the tornado, they have planted tens of thousands more mums.

Immediately after the tornado, Illausky said he didn’t even think about whether he would rebuild; he just started rebuilding. He estimates that the damage to the business was in the millions of dollars.

“I knew we had to react quickly; you just do it,” Illausky said. “With this many employees it’s not a decision just for me; it’s for everybody else.”

Thankfully, summer is generally a slower time for the business, Illausky said. That enables some of the 25-plus employees to help with the cleanup, rebuilding and transplanting.

“We had under an acre that survived, including one greenhouse which now holds all the house plants we were able to salvage,” Illausky said. It’s where they continue propagating the plants.

While they are trying to keep the business going, filling orders in their makeshift office in a construction trailer, Illausky estimates they have at least another month of demolition and clearing off the damaged greenhouses.

“It’s a work in progress,” Illausky said. But, in the end, they’ll have a brand new facility.

“We are going to be more efficient,” he said.

Rebuilding

The tornado also disrupted many lives at Building Blocks Daycare Center at 1411 East 1850 Road. The families of 70 children, including 17 ECKAN Early Head Start children, depended on the facility, as did the staff of about 30 who counted on the employment.

The children have been accommodated at day cares around the area. At first, the center staff were not sure they could ever return to the building; however, it has been deemed structurally sound, according to Peter Shenouda, who manages the property for his father, Victor Shenouda.

A new roof has been put on Building Blocks Daycare Center, 1411 East 1850 Road, pictured Wednesday, July 24, 2019. The owners of the building hope to have the day care open again by January 2020.

A new roof has been put on the building, and an architect is drawing up a design for restoring the structure. Peter is hopeful the day care can open early next year.

“I have employees and parents waiting for me to reopen,” Peter said.

An architect is working on the design because the gymnasium was destroyed, making an interior wall an exterior wall, Peter said. He plans to present the design to the county zoning office and is hoping to get a permit to move forward. He has a crew lined up for the interior work, which includes painting and putting in new floors. He must also redesign the playground.

They have salvaged furniture and some toys, though many items are in the pile of rubble by the road.

“I was underinsured,” Peter said. “I never thought we would get a tornado that bad in Lawrence. I learned a lesson.

“I am just happy no one was hurt, things can be replaced. People can’t.”

Debris from the cleanup following the May 28, 2019, tornado sits beside Building Blocks Daycare Center at 1411 East 1850 Road in Douglas County.

At Pendleton’s Country Market, they have been so busy trying to make payroll that they have been slower with the cleanup, Karen Pendleton said, but they plan to close the retail market during August to focus on rebuilding. They have their house and multiple buildings to repair. They will continue providing fresh vegetables weekly to those enrolled in the market’s Community-Supported Agriculture program. They will also be at the Downtown Lawrence Farmers’ Market on Saturdays and the Clinton Parkway Nursery on Wednesdays.

Changing landscape

More than a dozen houses in Douglas County were outright destroyed by the tornado, and many more were so severely damaged that families could not immediately live in them.

The south side of David and Wendy Vertacnik’s house at 1403 East 1850 Road is still draped in tarps, with boarded-up windows. They haven’t been able to return. David’s art studio, plus many of the outbuildings and orchard were destroyed.

Two months later, David, a sculptor and retired art professor at the University of Kansas, feels that his life is in limbo. While they plan to repair and rebuild, it will take time because construction crews are backed up with so much work, he said.

“I’m still trying to understand what happened,” he said. A difficult part is seeing the landscape of the neighborhood, where he has lived for 40 years, so changed.

On a positive note, Friday he was going through a storage container and found notes he had made when he first built his studio. Those will help — with rebuilding and with morale.

“It was a glorious morning finding those notes,” he said.