Buffalo Lake remembers 'A new normal' pervades town

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

BUFFALO LAKE - Had it been one year earlier, the people who stood in the streets of Buffalo Lake would have been in great danger.

But on Thursday night, they walked the streets of the town, ate free food handed out by the Salvation Army, chatted about work or school and stopped to remember the way things were exactly one year ago.

The day, designed to commemorate the anniversary of the tornado that hit Buffalo Lake on July 24, 2003, started with tours of some of the places that were struck by the storm.

Videos of the newscasts that reported the tornado played on twin television sets in the gym at Buffalo Lake-Hector Elementary School. Many passersby stopped and stared at the footage of the tornado's destruction and quietly spoke to each other as scenes from the day after rolled across the screen.

Not too far away from the videos, a woman stood behind a table selling the leftover "We Survived The Buffalo Lake Tornado" T-shirts that didn't get sold last year.

On another table at the other end of the gym, a large scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings sat in front of a display of photographs of the town after the tornado went through.

The evening ended with prayers, tolling church bells, many expressions of gratitude and the dedication of a marker in the city park commemorating the tornado.

Most of the people who turned up for the dedication of Memorial Park remember where they were and what they were doing when the tornado hit their town.

Frank Berg, a K-9 officer for the Buffalo Lake Police Department, had started his shift at 2 a.m. On that day, he didn't get to sleep until 7 o'clock the following morning. Two hours later, he was back on duty.

"All I know was it was devastating," he said, standing outside the school, a golden retriever on the end of a leash around his wrist.

While Berg was canvassing the town, going door-to-door to make welfare checks, EMT Bonnie Kerrigan had just come out of her basement and saw ambulance after ambulance, fire truck after fire truck passing by her house.

DeeAnn Beihoffer was scheduled to work at the city's bakery one hour after the tornado hit Main Street, demolishing the town's post office, grocery store and the bakery where Beihoffer had worked for nearly 40 years. She said she's had trouble finding a job ever since then.

"I saw all the devastation," she said. "It was too much."

One day later, Sheila Hawkinson, a sales representative for Cellular One, came to town to help residents re-establish telephone service.

"I'm a salesperson. I stopped selling for one day," she said. "It was a life-changing experience. You just realize life is short and can be taken away."

One year later, Buffalo Lake is only 75 percent rebuilt and areas outside the town are faring worse because of the damage, according to Joyce Nyhus, executive director of the Buffalo Lake Area Recovery Effort. Parts of Buffalo Lake are starting to look like a new housing development, complete with newly-planted trees and work on Main Street is eventually going to start. She said BLARE is also struggling to help homeowners who were underinsured or didn't have any insurance at all rebuild their homes. She said she's found a group of volunteers who are willing to help rebuilt the houses, but is still trying to find construction materials.

"This is exhausting on a daily basis, but it's the most rewarding job I've ever had," she said.

To those frustrated people, the Rev. Sharon Nelson of the Zion United Methodist Church offered some words of encouragement.

"One year ago, we called ourselves survivors. Well, we're no longer survivors, we're thrivers. To be thrivers, we have to make conscious effort to be thrivers," she said. "We have to see with new eyes....There is no normal anymore, just a new normal."