Tornado victims struggle to get home again

Selma officials may be optimistic about the overall rebuilding process six months after the EF-2 tornado tore through Selma on Jan. 12, but many residents are still struggling to put their lives back together. 

Reports show more than 1,000 homeowners in Dallas County applied for FEMA assistance after the tornado, and many of those have had to move to hotels, in with relatives or to other communities because their homes were too badly damaged to live in them. 

The Selma Sun reconnected with several tornado victims this week to find out they are still struggling with insurance and FEMA paperwork and to find materials and laborers to get their homes repaired and livable again. 

Collins Pettaway III and his parents are among many that have been displaced since the storm caused major damage to their home on Tremont Street. The tornado with winds clocking 135 mph shattered their windows and destroyed their terra cotta roof, sending rainwater and broken glass throughout Pettaway’s childhood home that he shares with his father, renowned Circuit Judge Collins Pettaway Jr., and his mother Synethia.   

The house is unlivable, so Pettaway said they have been living “a new normal” the last six months at a relative’s home as they work to get the carpet and windows replaced at his childhood home. 

They’ve struggled to find the right materials to repair the unusual roof tiles and had to say goodbye to their backyard gazebo that was crushed under trees. The backyard is now an empty space. 

“I was at my office downtown when it hit, and I would not be alive if I was at home,” Pettaway said, adding his bedroom had the most damage of the entire house. 

Pettaway said filing for insurance has been a “pain,” and he suspects delays for reimbursement are due to the large number of claims made in one place that was hit so badly.  

His family got a check from their insurance company, but he says it wasn’t near the value they requested to rebuild. Also, a business owner, Pettaway lost many necessary documents in the storm and got denied financial assistance from SBA. 

While his home still remains unlivable six months later, Pettaway still calls his family lucky considering neighbors have had to knock down their homes that weren’t salvageable. 

The Pettaways are active members of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in the Smokey City part of east Selma and have seen many other Selmians also displaced and moved to communities outside of Selma due to lack of available housing.  

They have many church members who are now living in Montgomery and Birmingham. However, overall, most partitioners were able to get help through the many channels of assistance over the last six months and “get back on their feet,” Pettaway said.  

Annie Pearl Avery, whose home on Young Street was damaged badly, told the Selma Sun about her rebuilding process in March and said in July that she is still displaced, living with friends and in hotels. 

Avery worries most about her home being broken into while she isn’t able to live there.  

She has worked with insurance and FEMA but says reimbursement won’t be enough to rebuild. Living on a fixed income, Avery said she has applied for construction help from Samaritan’s Purse, a nonprofit that came to her aide with a blue tarp immediately after the storm. If approved, she hopes they will bring the house up to code and to fix the plumbing that was disconnected from the house when the tornado lifted the back half of her house from its foundation. 

One saving grace is the frequent requests she receives to speak at events about her life as a foot soldier in the civil rights movement. Since the tornado, Avery has had some good nights in hotels where she has served on panels or spoken at events in Mississippi, Huntsville, Atlanta, Birmingham and Montevallo. Avery is well known for her work with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s. Watch an interview with Avery at the Black Belt News Network’s YouTube channel. 

“I’m ok - I survived the storm,” Avery said. “Now I work to survive the consequences of the storm.”