Wadena Pioneer Journal office: (218) 631-2561 • Fax: (218) 631-1621 • Web site: www.wadenapj.com • E-mail: PJeditor@gmail.com or classifieds@wadenapj.com

In this issue of Community Builder, a quarterly publication of local Forum Communications newspapers, we will go on the job with the tornado rebuilding effort, and learn about the

people and procedures being used to get homes, the school and the lives rebuilt in Wadena.

How can homeowners bridge the gap if insurance didn’t cover all their losses? According to local insurance agencies, banks and the Long-Term Recovery Committee, they have several options.

Understand your insurance policy

Jolene Johannes, one of two State Farm insurance agents in Wadena, said that some area residents might not realize how much they can get back from their policy.

“You don’t want to leave money on the table if there’s still money available,” Jo-hannes said.

Replacement cost coverage and replacement cost coverage on contents allows policyhold-ers to recoup some of their losses.

“Insurance companies often will pay the actual cash value on the roof, on the siding and the windows, and when the work is done, you submit your receipts to recover the actual cost,” she said. “If you have replacement cost coverage.”

Some policy holders may also have replacement cost coverage on contents which allows them to recover more

than just the actual cash value, which is the depreciated value of their property.

“When the item is replaced, the policy holder submits the receipt and then they get cov-erage for the similar item,” Johannes said. “So if your refrigerator is 20 years old, and the insurance company pays you $50, and then you go to buy it back ... but the same kind of refrigerator is $700, as long as you have a receipt, the insurance company will pay that difference.”

She em-phasized that replacement cost coverage on con-tents is necessary for reimburse-ment.

Katie Usel-man of Pierce & Associates said that some area residents may have coverage for recoverable depreciation without knowing it.

“Recoverable depreciation is when your adjuster comes out and says, ‘We believe the damages are $10,000. We’re going to give you $7,500 to start on your repairs, and when the work is completed, you can get the rest of those funds,’”

Uselman said. “A lot of people don’t know they have recover-able depreciation.”

Johannes said that with some companies, including State Farm and American Family Insurance, policy hold-ers who choose to insure their house at the full recommended value are actually insured up to 20 percent over the full value.

Johannes said that commu-nicating with one’s insurance agent is important.

“If you’re going to go over the amount that the insur-ance estimated as your total cost, they you want to contact your insurance company fi rst,” she said. “If the contractor fi nds addition-al damage, you want to be sure also to contact your insurance

company right away.”Uselman said that under-

standing one’s insurance policy could help to avoid confusion in the future.

“Review your policy annu-ally. Your agent should be do-ing that with you,” she said.

Johannes said that she called the State Farm agent in

Greensburg, Kan. right after the June 17 tornado. She said that the Greensburg agent had some good advice about life after a tornado.

“Every day, you look at all this damage and pretty soon ... you start thinking that your neighbors are better off fi nan-cially than you,” Johannes said. “The last thing you want to say to that person whose house is OK is, ‘Oh, you’re so lucky.’ Because they in their mind don’t feel they are lucky.”

Investigate low-interest loans

Jamie Pettit, executive vice president and internal auditor at First National Bank, talked about the process of getting a loan to make up the difference between insurance payout and recovery costs.

“The fi rst thing we would do is review the appraised value of their property and see how much they currently owe on it, whether it’s with us or another lender, and then evalu-ate their ability to repay a loan if they need to take out a loan to bridge that gap.”

Kip Browne of Wadena State Bank said that if there is insurance money left after mortgage on the fi rst house, it can be used to get started on a new house.

“With the money they have left over, they can use that to go to a lender to get a loan to build a new home on that same location, or they can use the money that’s left over to go to a lender to buy a different home,” he said.

Jeff Browne of Wadena State Bank, and also the trea-surer of the Wadena-Otter Tail Long-Term Recovery Com-mittee, said that residents can adjust an existing house loan.

“Let’s say you have a house worth $100,000 and you owe $50,000 on it, and your debt-to-income ratio is under 40 percent — in other words, if you make a thousand dollars a month, you want to see more than $400 in fi xed obligations, which includes your house payments, car payments, student loans, anything that’s debt that’s paid over time. So if somebody is short $10-15,000, and the debt to income ratio is in line ... maybe they have 15 years left of the mortgage. Well they can probably go in and redo the loan for 65, keep the payments the same and you put it back on a 20 to 30 year amortization,” he said.

Browne said that most people he knew of were ad-equately insured.

Besides local bank loans, the Small Business Adminis-

tration (SBA) is a resource for affected homeowners to tap into low-interest loans.

“I look at the credit bureau reports every month, and I’ve noticed there’s more Small Business Administration loans that are occurring, so people are going that direction,” Browne said. “And that’s a good way to borrow because it’s at 2 or 3 percent.”

“The SBA low-interest loan program ended Sept. 7,” said Wendy Molstad, case worker at the Long-Term Recovery Committee. “But homeowners that would still like to apply can send in a letter why they didn’t meet the deadline, and they will take those cases on a case-by-case basis.”

Molstad said that the USDA is another source for loans.

She said that Rural Finance Authority has disaster loan programs for farmers, and that the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency (MHFA) has interest-free loans for people with low incomes.

Long term recovery committee

Help from the Wadena-Ot-ter Tail Long Term Recovery Committee is another option for anyone affected by the

Nordlund, family getting back to normal lifeWhen Sue Nordlund climbed out

of the basement of her home at 326 Eighth Street Southwest on the af-ternoon of June 17, she had one big reason for despair but six very good reasons to be thankful.

Not only was she OK, her daughter, Denise, and four of her grandchildren, Stephanie, Mickaela, Casey and Chase, were all fi ne as well.

The EF-4 tornado that had de-stroyed the brick-built Wadena Se-nior High School only two blocks away, and had pulverized the homes of some of her neighbors, had blown the windows out of Nordlund’s two-story home and dropped a big tree on her garage.

The main fl oor of the home she has lived in for 29 years was littered with glass. Her lawn was full of glass, insulation and property which did not belong to her. Her daughter Denise ran upstairs to fi nd the car she had arrived in was destroyed. Chase found a baseball bat he had tucked into his grandma’s garage sitting squarely next to home plate in the back yard – just begging for someone to pick it up and swing it.

The baseball game would have to wait.

Nordlund and her family put shoes on and joined the people who, like them, were emerging from their places of safety.

“There were a lot of people around and the police were going around making sure everyone was OK,” Nordlund said. “It was just kind of shock, there was a lot to take in.”

City offi cials ordered them to leave the neighborhood because of a gas leak.

With the help of her daughter, her son-in-law Trevor and her son Jamie, Nordlund began putting her world back together. Trevor tackled one of the fi rst big jobs, boarding up the windows.

After contacting her insurance agent, Nordlund and her helpers started cleaning up. There was a lot of painting to do inside, a roof to re-pair, windows to replace, fl ooring to replace, carpet to lay. The house will get new siding in November.

“There has been a lot of work done,” Nordlund said. In fact, the recovery process is still under way.

Still, there were many reasons to be thankful. No one had been killed and Nordlund did not hear of any injuries in the neighborhood.

Getting back to normal is the goal. Grandma takes care of her grand-children in the summer during the day while their parents are working. After the tornado, the grandchildren could no longer visit for awhile.

“I know for a few days there was no way to move on these streets be-cause there was so much going on, but that’s a good thing,” Nordlund said.

Nordlund found an old stove in her yard and a pillow, and the tele-vision did not work because a 2x4

board had gone through the screen. That did not matter because for the fi rst six days after the tornado she did not have power.

“I am just glad that everyone came out OK and we can replace everything else that was damaged,” Nordlund said. “We’re just thankful for that.”

Nordlund has a job at Larry’s Pizza in downtown Wadena, and in addition to fi xing up her house, she kept working. Going to a job was actually good therapy and a good es-

cape from all the work at her home.“It wasn’t easy but sometimes

you just have to make the best of what happens. There was just a lot of work to do and we kept working at it,” Nordlund said.

Other people in her neighborhood lost so much more than Nordlund but she sees her neighborhood, and her life, slowly returning to normal.

She just does not want to pick up another paintbrush anytime soon.

Bridging the gap

Photo by Brian HanselSue Nordlund’s two-story home at 326 Eighth Street in Wadena was one of more than 200 dwellings in Wadena to be destroyed or damaged by a June 17 tornado. Nordlund was in the basement at the time along with her three grandchildren, Chase, left, Casey and Mickaela, her oldest grand-daughter, Stephanie, and her daughter, Denise.

See BRIDGING GAP on PAGE 6

Saturday, October 30, 2010 • 8 Pages

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RACHELLE KLEMMErachellek@wadenapj.com

“Review your policy annually.”– Katie Uselman

BRIAN HANSELbrianh@wadenapj.com

What to do when your homeowners policy didn’t cover all of your losses

Page 2 • October 30, 2010 PJ Community Builder Wadena Pioneer Journal

Three siblings living on a century farm survived a torna-do that destroyed their house and all their buildings on June 17. They have returned to the 118-year-old Stinar Farm in a new custom house just in time for one sister’s birthday.

Vivian Johnson, Ilo Mae Thorne and Fred Stinar re-counted the day they escaped from the twister.

Johnson said they were all home on June 17.

“We watched [the tornado] come over the barn,” she said.

Fred Stinar was outside when his sister warned him about the oncoming Bluffton/Almora tornado.

“She told me there was a tornado over by Henning and Battle Lake heading over this way. So then I walked to the house in here, and it started to rain, and when I got to the house they were ready to go in the basement. By the time I got in the basement, about the third step down, it hit the house and everything just ex-ploded,” Stinar said.

Johnson said that debris fl ew everywhere.

All seven farm buildings were destroyed, and the house was ripped off the founda-tion.

She said that shortly af-terward, they found an apart-ment and contacted Verndale Custom Homes.

The Stinar Farm siblings and Verndale Custom Homes were connected through rela-tives, and the company had also worked on their shower in the past.

Toni Glenz, who works in sales and estimating at Vern-dale Custom Homes, sold the home to the Stinar Farm sib-lings and worked with them on the project.

“We basically stick-build a home right here at our facil-ity. We design them. And we bring out the homes to the site in one piece so they’re not like a manufactured or modu-lar home,” he said. “We have designers that work here that work with the customers. So they’re all custom built.”

“We liked the way they di-agrammed it and everything. They were real good,” Stinar said. “We just told them how we wanted it laid out.”

He said that their designer Donna was very good, and that Ilo Mae Thorne’s son Harold Thorne had helped with the planning.

“We worked on the design period for about a week and then started their home in the beginning of July,” Glenz said.

He said that it typically takes about 5-6 weeks to build a home, depending on size.

“We actually did it a little wider than we usually do it, it’s 30x62, we did it 2 feet wider,” he said. “It was easy access. ... It’s called universal design. It makes everything easier when you progress in age.”

The house also includes a guest bedroom and a guest bathroom by the hallway.

“A lot of their family comes back to hunt and those types of things, so they wanted an extra bedroom and bath for guests,” Glenz said.

As the house was being

built, the Stinar siblings were busy.

Glenz said that they deliv-ered the house to the site on Sept. 1, but they still had work to do including light fi xtures and fl oor coverings.

The Stinar siblings moved into their new house about the third weekend of October when the house was ready to be lived in.

“They’ve got the water and everything hooked up, and the electric,” Stinar said.

“The Stinars were great to work with. They’re really a great group of people,” Glenz said.

There is still work to be done on the farm. At the time of the interview, the garage and the laundry room were

A century farm, a home custom-made and quick

Photo by Rachelle KlemmeSiblings Vivian Johnson, Ilo Mae Thorne and Fred Stinar relax in their new home.

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Wadena Pioneer Journal PJ Community Builder October 30, 2010 • Page 3

M&W Construction & Cabinets is one of many local contractors that have been ac-tive in rebuilding houses.

Ron Malone, one of the owners and the M in M&W, said his company has had 32 different projects since the June 17 storms.

Jim and Sandy Maloney of rural Deer Creek were among the many homeowners who hired contractors to rebuild.

Their similar last names are a coincidence, but they are old family friends.

“It’s easy for people to forget about what happened in the country,” Malone said.

The Maloneys’ house was totalled by the Bluffton/Al-mora EF4 tornado, and M&W had worked on it since Sept. 13.

“We built it new from the ground up,” Malone said.

Malone said that as a con-tractor, his typical day starts at about 6:30 a.m., planning and working with phone calls. At 7:30 a.m., employees show up at his house, and they leave for the work site.

“A lot of my life is plan-ning ahead,” Malone said.

He said that having ma-terials ordered and delivered ahead of time was a crucial part of the job.

On the day before, the crew of seven had fi nished the concrete driveway.

Friday had four people sheet-rocking the house. Bob Weniger, the W in M&W, had the day off along with two employees.

Siding was all that was left of the exterior.

“Everything else is water-tight,” Malone said.

He then took a phone call from Merickel Lumber about building supplies.

After the phone call, he talked about putting polyeth-ylene sheeting — poly for short — on the ceilings.

Bernie Sabinash worked on walls and insulation, get-ting the last wood backer into a corner. The backer supports the sheetrock, which is easy to break by itself.

In addition its own crew, M&W hires subcontractors for specialized jobs. Aaron Menze with Ottertail Ag Ser-

vice applied foam insulation into the basement rim joists. As he wore a white protec-tive suit and blew foam from a tube connected to a truck just outside the basement en-trance, it looked a little like a scene from “E.T.”

After the rim joist insula-tion work was done, Menze left the site.

Malone said that on Thurs-day night, they had discussed fl oor companies and getting another subcontractor for fl oor coverings.

While their new house is under construction, Jim and Sandy Maloney have been liv-ing in their camper and con-tinuing work on the farm.

Late in the morning, Jim Maloney, who grows corn and soybeans, was in Wadena looking for parts for a com-bine. Sandy Maloney was home and had time to talk.

The farm, which the Malo-neys bought in 1968, is more than 100 years old.

“Electricity went off at a quarter after four,” she said, recalling the events of June 17.

They later felt the change in pressure and the suction, and her husband saw the top of a corn bin being carried off.

“The cat beat me down-stairs,” Maloney said. “About 30 seconds, it was all over with.”

She said that on they had 70 volunteers helping them on Saturday and 50 on Sunday. She expressed appreciation for their work. Family mem-bers helped with cleanup as well.

Maloney has kept a photo

album detailing their tornado story: the immediate destruc-tion, cleanup thanks to family members and volunteers and the longer process of rebuild-ing. She has also saved news-paper clippings of their house from the immediate tornado aftermath.

Maloney said that most of the farm buildings were totalled, only one of the three corn bins was left and most of the machinery was dam-aged — only one tractor did not have problems after the storm.

The twisted and once bare Chinese elm trees leafed out after the tornado, and they look like they would be more at home in the California des-ert than in rural Deer Creek. Jim Maloney called them “Minnesota palms.”

Sixty acres of soybeans had to be replanted, Sandy Maloney said.

The house was still stand-ing after the tornado, but it was off the foundation and had to be taken down.

Sandy Maloney said that she and Jim had known Malo-ne since he was a kid.

“I knew he was good,” Ma-loney said.

Malone has been a con-tractor for 17 years.

He and Bob Weniger have been business partners since April 1997.

Malone said that the full-time employees put in about 45 hours of work on a typical week.

Justin Evans, a graduate of M-State, started as an intern in 2005 and has been a full-time employee since 2006.

Sean Nelson, a part-time

employee, started three days after the tornado. He is coor-dinating with college time and will graduate from M State in May.

Bernie Sabinash has worked for M&W Construc-tion since January 2000. Prior to joining the company, he had worked as a dairy farmer.

Weniger, Robert Segovia and Jake Trosen had the day off.

Segovia, whose father is a contractor, had worked with M&W for six years. He is also a musician.

Trosen is working on a de-gree from Alexandria Techni-cal and Community College, but because of the busyness of the tornado, he decided to take a gap year and stay with the company full time in the next several months.

There is work to be done all year, but the summer sea-son is busiest.

Malone said that M&W Cabinets stayed extremely busy until 2008 with the

housing crunch, and that they had to do winter layoffs in the past two years.

After the 2010 tornado, it was busy again. This year there will be no winter lay-offs, Malone said.

Contractors and their em-ployees work in all kinds of weather, and the summer of 2010 combined heat and hu-midity with lots of roof work.

“We got rotisserie cooked,” Malone said, but added that no one got sick.

What about winter?Evans had two words:

“Mountain Dew.”Malone said that they had

framed houses in minus-45 wind chill, and that they also

A day in the life of a builderRACHELLE KLEMME

rachellek@wadenapj.com

11:40 a.m.: Justin Evans works on the sheetrock for the ceiling.

Photos by Rachelle Klemme11:33 a.m.: Bernie Sabinash prepares an area to get the last backer into the corner.

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Page 4 • October 30, 2010 PJ Community Builder Wadena Pioneer Journal

Wadena’s lumberyards, Merickel Lumber Mills and Northwest Building Center, have been powerhouses of rebuilding since June 17 and have continued to be busy well into the autumn.

“It’s been very, very hec-tic. Just extremely busy,” Jim Merickel, president of Merickel lumber, said. “We were already relatively busy with our normal building projects.”

Merickel said that the tornado’s occurrence at the peak of the building season put many additional demands on employees, and that more people had been hired to keep up with building projects.

“We extended our hours immediately from 7 in the morning until 7 at night for the fi rst couple weeks,” Mer-ickel said, adding that em-ployees often worked from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

“We had employees here that lost their homes and had severe damage to their personal dwellings, so they had to share their time with not only taking care of their own needs, but taking care of the customers of Merickel Lumber,” Merickel said.

The lumberyard itself sustained tornado damage, losing fi ve buildings. It is in the process of constructing new ones.

Merickel said he expects things to be busy until it freezes up.

“I would say by the end of November it will drop off dramatically, which is the history of this business,” he said.

Most of Merickel Lum-ber’s business is within 90 miles of Wadena, but it is not limited to the area.

“Just recently we sent loads to western North Da-kota and Wyoming,” he said.

Merickel expressed ap-preciation for the people involved.

“I can’t say enough good things about the employees of Merickel Lumber Mills with what they’ve had to go through and the additional hours and how they stepped up to the plate and went above and beyond my ex-pectations,” Merickel said. “And we’ve appreciated the patience of all of our custom-ers during these hectic times, during these stressful times.”

Due to the busy season, Northwest Building Center was unable to participate in the story.

Lumber yards stretched hours, workforce to keep up

Lyle Walz manages the millwork at Merickel Lumber.

Dustin Uselman unloads some 2x4s onto a pile.

RACHELLE KLEMMErachellek@wadenapj.com

Photos by Rachelle KlemmeA new building at the Merickel Lumberyard. Several buildings were lost in the June 17 tornado.

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STINAR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2

Photos by Rachelle KlemmeA house in the stage nearing completion at Verndale Custom Homes.

The frame of a new house under construction.

not yet fi nished, workers were busy with power tools in the basement and a stretch of dirt about 20 feet in front of the new house marks the spot where their old home used to be.

“We’re used to a big gar-den and things like that,” Johnson said.

By all indications, they are back on their way to a normal life.

“It’s nice to be home,” she

said.The Stinars’ neighbors also

had a house destroyed in the tornado and chose the same company for rebuilding. The neighbors’ new house was nearing completion at Vern-dale Custom Homes.

The day of the interview happened to be a special day for the three siblings.

“It is a nice birthday pres-ent. Today is my birthday,” Thorne said.

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12:39 p.m.: Ron Malone trims a piece of sheetrock.

worked on cabi-nets during colder months.

Sabinash was done for the day at around noon. The remaining crew had lunch about 12:45. Nelson went home, and Malone and Evans went to Brewski’s in Deer Creek. Malone said that they like to go there sometimes on Fridays.

Returning for the afternoon, Malone, Evans and Nelson kept work-ing on sheetrock and cut cir-cular holes in the ceiling for recess lights.

A pack of Mello Yello and a bag of sunfl ower seeds lay off to the side, but they had not been opened for a while. Malone said the group usually takes an afternoon break.

The hands-on, on-site work gets done at about 5 p.m., but it is not the end of the day for

Malone. He said that he deals with book work and busi-ness aspects on evenings and weekends.

“This house will be moved into by the fi rst of December,” Malone said.

After rebuilding at the Ma-loneys’ farm, there are other jobs to be done.

“The people that are wait-ing for me to get there are always on my mind,” Malone said.

CONSTRUCTION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

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1:56 p.m.: Shawn Nelson works with the panel lift.

Photo by Rachelle Klemme2:55 p.m.: Justin Evans, Ron Malone and Shawn Nelson have a piece of sheetrock ready to be carried into the next room.

Page 6 • October 30, 2010 PJ Community Builder Wadena Pioneer Journal

BRIDGING GAP FROM PAGE 1

Byron Larson was just a few blocks from his 10th Street home — and just eight months away from retirement — when the weather turned ugly.

Wadena’s planning and zoning director hid his vehicle behind the Wadena Public Library and rode out the June 17 storm. Navigating his way home through a maze of downed trees and power lines, he went through some of the most severely tornado-dam-aged areas.

“Eighth street was a mess,” Larson said. “So was seventh, sixth.”

He likened the scene to old World War II movies, such as the bombed-out towns in Eu-rope depicted in those films.

There were dozens and dozens of gas leaks, and Lar-son helped some residents contact the proper authorities to get them turned off. He fi-nally made it to his own home to find a hole in his roof, a 2x4 piercing a wall and some other minor damage. After seeing other homes in his neighbor-hood, he got off lucky, he said.

“I was very relieved to see my house was still standing,” Larson said.

He fixed what needed fix-ing and steadied himself for the coming day.

“I knew the next morning was going to be very busy,” Larson said.

It was.

Experience helpedLarson grew up in Elbow

Lake, Minn., and came to Wadena in 1979 to accept a job at Homecrest. During the outdoor furniture’s heyday, he was the facilities manager and made sure the building and equipment inside ran smoothly.

He brought previous experience to that job from Melroe Bobcat, Larson Boats and EF Johnson Electronics in Waseca, Minn. While at Homecrest, Larson started serving on Wadena’s planning commission. After 10 years on the commission, the job of planning and zoning director opened up, and it was a pre-dictably smooth transition for Larson to step in.

“It was very close to what I expected,” he said.

He is well-known for knowing the zoning and building ordinances inside and out and often cites them on command at city council meetings. He also commonly presents well-organized re-ports packed with data and numbers. Wadena doesn’t use the state building code, so the city instead polices more set-back and zoning requirements for buildings in the city. The upside to that is building per-mits are a mere fraction of the cost of other cities.

He clearly has the air of a man who knows his job inside and out, but nothing could completely prepare him for the aftermath of the EF4 tornado that hit June 17.

The next morning, people started showing up at his of-fice, emotional and in need of help. Larson said it was a pretty helpless feeling, know-ing he couldn’t help them directly, but could only refer them to others. He said that experience, more than any other, will always remain in his mind when he thinks of his decade on the job for the city.

“It was very stressful be-cause I couldn’t help them – I had to refer them to others,” Larson said.

But there was other work to do. Larson’s office imme-diately recognized the need to help local citizens find con-tractors and avoid some of the fly-by-night operations that often show up on the heels of a tornado. So it began compil-ing a list of contractors who showed proof of their licens-ing and insurance to the city. That’s all it was, Larson said, not a “city approved” list or a hurdle for contractors to keep some out of the town. It was just informational, and a handy list for residents who would soon need such ser-vices. The list soon swelled to more than 150 businesses, at which point he cut it off.

“We had three employees tied up making that list,” he said. “We had other things to do, too.”

Larson was also assigned to assess the damage to city parks, the community center and sewer lift stations. He found a lot of devastation, and it was his job to catalog it.

Next Larson turned his at-tention to issuing demolition permits. He said those were needed for a few reasons. First, homeowners needed

a demolition permit to have their storm waste hauled to the temporary transfer site at the old airport property. Sec-ond, the permit was needed for record-keeping — both

to let the city know a house was going down and to let the county know not to assess property taxes for a home that

Larson issues the permits for deconstruction, rebuilding at harried pace

Photo by Steve SchulzPlanning and Zoning Director Byron Larson looks over a building inspector map of the tornado-damaged residents of Wadena. Larson’s office has been inundated with demoli-tion permits, and now building permits, since the twister.

An eventful final year in the planning and zoning office

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tornado.“There’s a lot of people that

are underinsured due to the fact that once depreciation is added in, they might have enough money to purchase supplies, but not enough money to actu-ally have a contractor do the construction work,” Molstad said. “So with our volunteer coordinator and our construc-tion supervisor, they’re able to coordinate rebuild help for people that are underinsured. And then we have some fi-nancial assistance available for those that are uninsured or underinsured.”

“I just hired a construction manager, and there’s groups out there that will offer free labor,” Jeff Browne said.

“Everyone that was af-fected by the tornado qualifies to come in and talk to us here. We don’t turn anyone away for any reason,” Molstad said. “There might be cases that we are not be able to help just because they are fully insured, but some people just need someone to talk to, and we’re here for that too.”

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What you need to know if you’re rebuilding

Are you rebuilding after the storm? If so, here’s what you need to know about when you do and don’t need a permit, and what to expect if you do.

You NEED a permit if you’re going to:• Build a home• Build an outbuilding• Build a deck• Construct a fence• Change your roof line• Demolish your home (demolition permit)

You DON’T need a permit if you’re going to:• Remodel a kitchen or other room that doesn’t change

the footprint of your building• Finish off a basement• Re-shingling, siding or changing windows

Costs:• $150 for a new house• $50-$75 for an addition• $30 for sheds, decks and fences• $200 fee for starting work without a permit

What you should expect:• You need to provide a sketch of the project you’re

doing. Get a tape measure and check setbacks from property lines and the street. Setbacks must be 25 feet in front, and 10 feet on each side of the property.

• While most contractors will pursue getting a permit, it’s ultimately the homeowner’s responsibility to make sure one is obtained before beginning construction.

• In addition to the sketch, a simple application must be filled out at the city offices.

Frequently asked questions:• If I had a non-conforming house (didn’t meet mod-

ern setback requirements prior to the storm), can I not rebuild now?

State law provides that if you lost your home in a storm, you can rebuild it to the same dimensions if you apply for a permit within 180 days of the storm (you still have time to do this.)

• Manufactured and modular homes are allowed pro-vided they meet setback and other requirements. (For instance, a basement or crawlspace are required.) See Byron Larson for more details.

See ZONING on PAGE 7

Wadena Pioneer Journal PJ Community Builder October 30, 2010 • Page 7

ZONING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

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no longer existed. Third, the utility crews needed to know about demolition to take care of the meters.

It’s a heartbreaking fi gure: 68 demolition permits were issued by Larson’s offi ce, and some more are still expected.

But the rebuilding boom has already started, too. On June 15, it looked like a fairly slow construction year in 2010, with only 18 building permits issued, compared to 68 in the full year of 2009, 63 in 2008 and 80 in 2007. And only $293,250 was on the books for construction for the year, only about one-tenth of the activity of the three previous years. Then it all changed: almost $6 million in construction permits poured in between June 15 and now. About $4 million is in new construction and $2 million is in fi x-ups or additions. That’s not counting some of the huge commercial projects yet to come, such as the high school

and the community center.Larson had cut back his

work week to four days a week prior to the tornado. Or he was supposed to. He’s only taken his expected Friday day off three times in four months.

“I’ve been in tornado mode for 3 1/2 months,” he said.

Sometimes he hardly be-lieves the devastation to the neighborhoods of Wadena.

Larson drives through the swath of tornado damage several times every day, but he admitted the devastation was so complete in some

neighborhoods, he can lose his bearings with the lack of former landmarks.

“I get lost,” he said. “I’m supposed to know the town better than anybody.”

RetirementLarson is planning to step

away and retire from his job in February. He joked about his coming departure.

“Yeah, Brett Favre and I are stepping out together,” he said. “I turned 65 last week. It’s just time.”

AGRICULTURAL • COMMERCIAL • RESIDENTIALLic. # 20634765

QTY

QTY

QTYPERMITS ISSUED 2007 2008 2009 2010

AS OF 6/152010

AS OF 9/30QTY

QTY

NEW CONSTRUCTION PERMITS Single Family 3 $ 305,000.00 4 $ 718,000.00 3 $ 427,500.00 22 $ 2,807,800.00 Multi-Family 2 $ 1,300,000.00 0 $ - 0 $ - 0 $ - Commercial & Industrial Buildings 2 $ 51,000.00 3 $ 953,429.00 3 $ 125,000.00 1 $ 700,000.00 Residential Garages 17 $ 199,895.00 10 $ 86,500.00 4 $ 70,000.00 1 $ 15,000.00 30 $ 650,740.00 Storage Sheds (Res/Cmcl/Ind) 13 $ 42,550.00 9 $ 8,175.00 11 $ 8,025.00 1 $ 5,000.00 13 $ 35,840.00 Other (Res/Cmcl/Ind - Decks, Fences, Etc.) 25 $ 34,100.00 21 $ 53,635.00 32 $ 236,988.00 10 $ 8,350.00 24 $ 32,270.00

Sub-total - New Construction Permits 62 $ 1,932,545.00 47 $ 1,819,739.00 53 $ 867,513.00 12 $ 28,350.00 90 $ 4,226,650.00

ALTERATIONS & ADDITIONS PERMITS Single & Multi Family 4 $ 246,600.00 4 $ 43,370.00 3 $ 35,000.00 1 $ 30,000.00 11 $ 295,000.00 Commercial & Industrial Buildings 11 $ 478,569.00 10 $ 329,300.00 10 $ 257,147.00 1 $ 3,500.00 12 $ 987,300.00 Schools 0 $ - 2 $ 66,380.00 1 $ 495,000.00 3 $ 230,400.00 4 $ 370,400.00 City Buildings 2 $ 854,794.00 0 $ - 0 $ - 0 $ - 0 $ - Churches 0 $ - 0 $ - 0 $ - 1 $ 1,000.00 1 $ 350,000.00 Hospital 1 $ 20,000.00 0 $ - 1 $ 391,600.00 0 $ - 0 $ -

Sub-total - Alterations & Addition Permits 18 $ 1,599,963.00 16 $ 439,050.00 4 $ 1,178,747.00 6 $ 264,900.00 28 $ 2,002,700.00

Total Permits & Values 80 $ 3,532,508.00 63 $ 2,258,789.00 68 $ 2,046,260.00 18 $ 293,250.00 186 $ 6,229,350.00

Page 8 • October 30, 2010 PJ Community Builder Wadena Pioneer Journal

Kraus-Anderson a leader in providing construction management services

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For Tyler Church, comfort is extremely important.

“You need to have a comfort level,” the Wadena-Deer Creek high school principal said.

The kind of “comfort” Church is looking for is a smooth-running school. Church lost his high school June 17 when an EF4 twister rolled right over the 45-year-old building. Within a minute, 500 WDC students were in need of a new school.

WDC school officials went right to work after the tornado and quickly discovered they had some options.

M State-Wadena offered to share classrooms. That took care of the top four grades. With enough time to upgrade the Deer Creek facility, the decision was made to bus the seventh- and eighth-graders there. The Wadena-Deer Creek Elementary played a pivotal role by offering classroom space to some secondary classes, including physical education, science, art and both band and choir.

Church runs his three-campus operation from M State-Wadena but makes regular runs to Deer Creek where activities director Norm Gallant is on site on school days.

The senior high students are welcome additions to the elementary school, according to elementary principal Louis Rutten.

“The kids look up to them and the staff is happy to see them because they generally wouldn’t see them,” Rutten said.

Mixing high school students and college students in the same building could have been tricky but Church has had help. The M State-Wadena students have accepted the newcomers without any hassles.

“I have to compliment the college students on what they’ve done,” Church said.

There are some challenges. WDC instructors have had to pack up their things to make room for the college classes that use the same rooms later in the day. Another challenge has been implementing the technology that a 21st Century school room runs on. Technical coordinator Aaron Johnson has been leading an effort to provide the computer monitors, Internet accounts, white boards and other technology the high school requires to operate effectively.

Church is proud of the fact that two months into the school year, the WDC students already feel at home.

“They do feel this is our school,” Church said.

That feeling prevails in Deer Creek as well where seventh- and eighth-graders are enjoying a feeling of ownership they would not have known last year in Wadena.

“They like it,” Church said. “They have their own little school.”

Students settle into temporary ‘comfort’

Wadena-Deer Creek seventh- and eighth-graders file into the Deer Creek facility at the start of another school day.

Photos by Brian HanselWadena-Deer Creek high school students take a short walk from WDC Elementary to M State-Wadena. High school classes are being held in both facilities.

BRIAN HANSELbrianh@wadenapj.com

Challenges remain, but WDC kids get comfortable in new surroundings