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Scenes From Molino: The Tornado Cleanup Continues

February 20, 2008

Lives were slowly coming back together in Molino Tuesday following Sunday’s tornado. NorthEscambia.com spent a few hours Tuesday walking around the hardest hit areas talking to residents and just observing.

At the Masonic Lodge in “Old Molino” we found members removing furniture from the building. The early 1900’s building, which once housed Molino’s Ford dealership, lost its entire roof during the Sunday tornado. Downstairs, the hanging ceiling panels are sagging under the weight of the water they are holding up. Upstairs, there’s the constant drip-drip of water dripping from old wood tongue and groove beaded ceiling (pictured left, click to enlarge). It has began to bow and buckle from the water. Water sloshes from the carpet with each step. Lodge members will be pulling the carpet out soon.

Back outside on Molino road, it is quiet. A stark contrast to Sunday’s sounds of emergency vehicles and chainsaws. Monday’s sightseers and television news crews are gone. The rhythmic tapping of a hammer or the sounds of a chainsaw breaks the quiet sound of birds chirping under picture perfect blue skies.

At Michelle Mitchell’s home on Molino Road, the roof is still on this car she had bought about a week ago from Sandy Sansing. When the dealership heard what happened, they replaced the crushed car with a convertible in an even trade.

At one mobile home a storage “pod” was delivered for the family’s belongings. Their trailer was picked up and put back down by the tornado. Just up the street, the smell of gas permeates from a motor home that was flipped upside down.

At Highland Baptist Church on Highway 95A, a blue tarp covers the spot in the roof where the church’s steeple had stood for 19 years. The steeple is in three pieces in the parking lot; a damaged car struck by the steeple still sits in the parking lot. The cross from the top of the steeple is propped up on the building’s porch.

County crews were hard at work just down from the church, working to remove a massive cedar tree and replace street signs twisted by the tornado. Crews were on the roof of the old Molino School repairing a hole in the roof.

On Crest Lane, Crest Place and Crest Way there was a great deal of activity. Generators were humming at homes that still did not have power due to damage from the storm. Contractors and restoration companies were everywhere. Some roofs were covered with old vinyl billboards, others with tarps, to protect against the elements.

A Gulf Power worker was high on the pole of a high voltage transmission line that was downed by the storm. A local pastor was visiting with people in the neighborhood. Allied Waste was delivering trash cans to replace those carried away by the tornado.

Pretty much everyone that NorthEscambia.com visited with Tuesday echoed the same thought…thankfulness. They were thankful that they were still alive, and thankful that no one was injured in the EF-1 tornado. Many, even people standing in front of homes that were no longer habitable, were quick to thank God.

NorthEscambia.com did observe two bothersome scenes on our tour of Molino. A contractor with an Pace/Milton area phone number has placed signs advertising their services on the streets around the damaged areas. To editorialize just a bit: NorthEscambia.com finds that just plain tacky.

We also observed a group of men looking for work. They parked their van out of site of a house. One went to the door looking for a job doing “anything” for him and his friends. He was turned away and went back to the van. Another man got out of the van and went to the homeowner’s door looking for work for his crew as a contractor.

For a complete photo gallery from Tuesday’s continuing cleanup in Molino, click here.

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Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News