It’s been almost a year since Greg Mixon got to go home to his house on Seventh Avenue North.
The house, which had been in his family for decades and belonged to his mother before him, was destroyed beyond repair in the February 2019 tornado that roared through central and northeast Columbus.
“Most of the top of the house was gone,” Mixon said. “… Water damaged the rest of the house. It wasn’t livable anymore.”
But months after volunteers demolished what was left of the structure and had the debris moved, a new house is taking shape on the same property. Though the exterior still needs vinyl siding, and it will be several months before the interior is complete with plumbing, electricity, HVAC systems and other necessities, the house has seen a lot of progress.
“The framing is good to go, the windows are in, the doors are in,” said project manager L.C. Cook. “We can secure the home until we start with the next phase of the house-building process.”
With luck, it will be ready for Mixon to move in within six months, though it could take up to a year, he said.
The house is one of 20 projects Columbus nonprofit Community Recovery of Lowndes County and United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) are currently working on in the long-running fight to repair homes damaged during the tornado. CRLC formed in the wake of the storm to work with people whose homes and property had been affected, and is armed with thousands of dollars in private donations along with a $250,000 grant from Mississippi Emergency Management Agency. The organization also works with other volunteer outfits, such as from Mennonite Disaster Services, on the constructions projects.
UMCOR case worker Vanessa Walker, whom CRLC hired last year, said Mixon’s house is the sole rebuild in progress, but there are two more homes approved for rebuilding on 18th Street North.
Cook, who oversees all CRLC’s projects, said one of those homes is slated to be demolished in the next couple of months. The other has been demolished.
“We’re probably about a month out before we get the slab down to start framing that one as well — maybe one to two months out,” Cook said, adding the status of many of the projects depends on the weather and volunteer availability.
CRLC volunteers are also completing work on 13 roofs and eight other projects, Walker said. Five smaller projects have been completed in their entirety.
“From new roofs to interior,” she said. “We had to replace walls or windows. … We did a lot of window repairs, roof repairs, ceiling repairs. And then we did some flooring. We replaced sinks and toilets and that kind of stuff — a lot of interior work.”
Though not everyone CRLC has worked with had severe enough damage to need to move, several people who were displaced have moved back into their homes, Walker said.
“(They were) very excited and very thankful,” she said. “… We’ve got a number of calls and some letters saying how grateful they were, or thankful.”
Other CLRC projects
CRLC chair Nicole Clinkscales said the organization has about 40 cases right now, some of them renters who need help replacing furniture or other property, and some of them homeowners who only applied for help after Federal Emergency Management Agency came to Columbus late last year to sign up people for individual assistance.
Other cases are being assessed, and Cook and Clinkscales both said they expect to sign off on more house projects in the coming months.
Several national organizations have sent volunteers to help work on the projects, with local volunteers helping out on an as-needed basis. While Clinkscales said MDS has been handling the brunt of the work the last couple of months, she is always looking for more.
“We’re always needing volunteers to come in and do construction work, contracting, electrical, plumbing, hammering, nailing,” she said. “We always need those kind of volunteers, so construction companies, church groups, reach out to us if they’ve got some volunteer hours they want to dedicate to the cause.”
As for Mixon, he is excited at the thought of one day moving back into his own home — he’s currently living with his mother in a home off Bluecutt Road — and hopes the weather cooperates so that move can come all the sooner.
The new house has a slightly different layout, he said — the bedrooms will be in the back of the house instead of the side, and the kitchen and bathroom will be on complete other sides.
“I like it a whole lot better,” he said.
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