City inspectors are fanning out across north Minneapolis, where some homes remain damaged four months after a tornado strike, to assess what can be done to help residents before winter arrives.
‘There are a number of properties that we still see in the tornado impact area that have blue tarps on their roofs,’ Tom Deegan, director of housing inspections, told Minnesota Public Radio News. The city wants to know why.
‘Is it that they don’t have the resources, were they uninsured, underinsured?’ he asked. ‘Did the insurance only cover ‘X’ amount of damage and not enough to get it all done?’
The city lists 206 properties as having major damage from the May 22 tornado. About 1,200 have minor damage. Deegan said city inspectors are spreading out across the tornado zone for another look.
‘They are going to look at roofs — if they were impacted by the tornado, how many shingles, what percentage of damage, do they still have a tarp on them? They are going to look at the windows, they are going to look at the doors and look at the siding,’ Deegan said.
The inspectors will check the tornado damage they find against the city’s master list of damaged properties. Then they’ll investigate the idle properties that have active construction permits and ask the owners about the status of repairs.
So far, 2,063 construction permits have been pulled for tornado damaged properties, but Deegan said many homes have multiple permits, making it difficult to accurately account for the number properties truly being fixed.
The city doesn’t know exactly how many property owners are uninsured or underinsured. But after the storm, officials estimated about 40 percent of homes and rental properties in the zone were uninsured, and that even most of the owners with insurance would not have enough coverage to pay for repairs. Most of those people didn’t qualify for other disaster assistance.
To close the gap, the city offers a forgivable loan program that already has received $1 million from the state. At least 50 people affected by the tornado already have applied for up to $30,000 in damage loans.
Cherie Shoquist, the city’s foreclosure recovery coordinator, said officials hope to help as many as 100 people fix and restore their homes to pre-tornado condition.
Even with that financing help, the city, county, state and nonprofit groups continue to raise money in order to help as many people as possible finish tornado repairs by December so homes don’t suffer even more damage in the cold.
Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News
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