It’s been four days since nine tornadoes ripped through the Miami Valley. The most severe storm, an EF4 twister, hit Brookville, Trotwood, Riverside and Old North Dayton. Water service has been restored there, but thousands of people are still without power.
On Kelly Avenue in Old North Dayton, only a handful of homes still have roofs. Shingles, sheet metal, and tangled power lines are stacked in piles on driveways. The smell of pine wafts from the loose tree limbs littering yards. Todd Pultz owns 11 of the buildings on the street. He says they’ve made a lot of progress cleaning up since Tuesday.
"So the first night that we was out here not only with all the debris, you also had hundreds and hundreds of bags of potato chips just laying everywhere because it took them all out the Frito Lay building. There were fish scattered throughout here so I don't know if it sucked them up from the river or what it did. But you know it was a pretty devastating site."
Construction crews have been working around the clock to clear debris, but there’s still a lot of work to be done. Pultz says he’s worried about his residents, many of whom have evacuated to shelters.
"They just want you back in their homes they don't have money to go stay at a hotel they don't have money to go out to eat every night. So they're just want to know what the timeline is going to be. And of course we can't answer that."
Volunteers have been assisting with the clean-up, and providing food and water to those displaced by the storm.
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