6 months later, the Portage tornado scars linger

PORTAGE, MI – It's been six months to the day since an EF2 tornado blew through Kalamazoo County.

Some areas have been cleaned up. Others look just as they did the night of May 7.

It's not hard to find tornado wreckage around Portage, Texas Township and Pavilion Township. There are tarps on roofs, damaged homes and snapped trees galore.

Impacted residents have been waiting for the federal government to declare a federal disaster, but the initial request from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was denied. An appeal filed Sept. 11 hasn't received a response yet.

MORE: 'Our turn to ask for help': 6 months after tornado, Portage still hopes for FEMA aid

Meanwhile, individuals are struggling to pay for costly repairs, Portage City Manager Pat McGinnis said. There's a noticeable "depression," in the air in the streets of Portage, he said.

"There's clear evidence that people don't have the resources they need to ... get this taken care of," McGinnis said in late September.

Here are four main areas hit hard by the May 7 tornado and how they look today.

Pavilion Estates mobile home park Pavilion Estates, a mobile home park just east of Portage, received a direct hit from the tornado around 6 p.m. that day, toward the end of the tornado's lifespan.

There were 17 mobile homes damaged, 173 homes destroyed and 16 people injured by the tornado in the neighborhood.

Six months later, the debris hasn't been cleared in totality.

Repairs on some homes are being made.

New developments at Pavilion Estates sit on stilts as they await a complete installation.

However, the new homes, with fresh paint, siding and windows, are still surrounded by an abundance of destroyed homes in the mobile home park.

Some mobile homes still present are collapsing in on themselves, worn down by weather.

One home with shattered windows, a caving roof and tattered siding has a doorway that doesn't have a door. Instead, it's blocked by a for-sale sign.

Vacant lots are filled with either fresh dirt or new concrete. Electrical boxes stick out of the glass- and wood-covered grass like cactuses in the desert.

Colony Woods Colony Woods, a neighborhood in Texas Township, was one of the first areas hit by the tornado.

Colony Woods was known for its heavy tree canopy, as a former tree sanctuary. But that came to the neighborhood's detriment on May 7.

When the tornado roared through, hundreds of the over 100-year-old trees were plucked out of the ground, landing in yards and on houses.

If the trees didn't land on personal property like a house, fence or treehouse, many residents learned insurance would not pay for the removal costs, said Jo'Anne O'Rourke, president of the Colony Woods Neighborhood Association.

Tree removal costs ranged from $10,000 to six figures in some cases, depending on the size of the trees. Another problem was the extensive, ugly root systems left exposed after trees were removed.

Now, many of the trees have been removed, and some have been replaced with younger trees.

Some impacted homes are still undergoing renovations, as shown below.

Timbercreek Apartments Tucked away in a cul-de-sac on Timbercreek Court are the remnants of several apartment buildings. There, the selective impacts of the May 7 tornado are evident — just south of Schuring Road and west of Westnedge Avenue.

The building's garage doors have been open for months, as have the doors inside the property. When Mounts returned with MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette reporters in July, she contemplated going inside to see what she could salvage. But she decided the structure wasn't safe enough.

Mounts could still see a stack of dishes she had bought earlier in the day sitting in the kitchen. Her bed frame, however, was tossed by the tornado onto another building.

The photo, below, shows Mounts' apartment on the top floor. The building next door is being repaired.

Portage Road area One of the most notable buildings impacted by the tornado was the FedEx shipment center at 6701 Portage Road.

A large portion of the building's roof was ripped off by the storm. Initial reports said up to 50 employees may be trapped inside, but those reports circulated by Kalamazoo County officials were later confirmed to not be true.

No FedEx employees were trapped inside and there were no serious injuries.

MORE: False report of 50 trapped at FedEx building after tornado came from officials' error

A new wall has been installed on the building, as the rebuilding is underway. FedEx officials previously told MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette partial operations are expected to return in late fall.

Before the tornado hit the FedEx building, it struck houses along Romence Road and Lovers Lane.

The photo, below, shows an uninhabited home on Romence Road Parkway in May.

The tree limbs in the roads were removed shortly after the tornado to restore traffic. Many of the fallen trees on properties have also been removed.

But several uninhabited homes nearby still have tree trunks smashed through roofs.

Here's a look at the same intersection, as of late October, and another area just up the road.

For more current photos of the remaining damage, check out the gallery at the top of the story or.

6 months later, the Portage tornado scars linger

Read more on the Portage tornado

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