Malden leaders share lessons from tornado response and recovery

DEXTER, Mo. — “Have you ever got that sickening feeling down in the pit of your stomach where you knew something bad had happened,” Malden Emergency Management Agency Director Jim Hollingshad asked a room of nearly 30 people at the Hickory Log restaurant.

That feeling came over him around 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 24 as all the lights in the city went out when a tornado hit the south end of Malden with no warning.

Monday afternoon, Hollingshad, Malden Mayor Denton Kooyman and City Clerk/Collector Ivone Smith were invited to share with other emergency management directors, city and school officials their response and recovery efforts following the tornado.

Hollingshad set the scene of the evening with three people on weather radar and about a dozen certified weather watchers out in the area coordinating with the city of Campbell.

“We were told the storm would go south between Clarkton and Malden,” he said.

Even with being told the storm would miss Malden, Kooyman reported about 250 residents took shelter in the FEMA safe room located on the school’s campus.

Moving at about 70 miles per hour, nothing was reported by weather watchers in the area or police.

When the lights went out, Hollingshad said, that is the instant he knew Malden had been hit.

Not only lights, but radios, the police department generator and warning devices were all out following the less than 60-second tornado when it hit the main feed line to the city.

“No one saw anything, no one heard anything,” Hollingshad said. “Weather watchers a block away didn’t see or hear anything.”

Kooyman, who was also a weather watcher the evening of the tornado, said he was within four blocks of the storm and never saw or heard anything as well.

“I did see the power explosion,” he said as the lights went out. “You can be that close to it and never see it.”

Hollingshad reported he was told a tornado hit the south end of town by hand-held radio and cell phone.

Every department head in the city of Malden came together, he said, and set up a perimeter around the damaged area.

A space was created for only emergency workers, fire and police to enter. The fire department was able to get residents out for safety reasons with many power lines down.

The slight upside to the tornado was it gave some relief to the city, Hollingshad said, by touching down in an open-field area for a portion of the 60 seconds.

Board of Public Works had power restored to most of the city, with the exception of the effected area, within 30 minutes, Hollingshad reported.

Malden has its own power plant which is used as backup and credited for how quickly power was restored. Most towns don’t have this luxury, officials said.

“The outpouring of support was the best part,” Kooyman said. “Local communities showed up.”

Without calling, police and fire from Dexter, Kennett, Bernie and other areas arrived to offer their help and support.

“It was a small area of town that was hit, but it’s still a large area to block out and search homes twice,” Kooyman said. “Our small departments couldn’t do it by themselves.”

He added Dexter and Kennett police officers each supplied 80 to 100 man hours to assist, time they can’t be paid for.

“That mutual aid, we would give back in a heartbeat,” he said.

At one point in the evening, Kooyman recalled being pulled “off the streets” helping to provide answers to the citizens, so that is the role he said he took.

“I have never seen a mayor so dedicated, out on the streets day and night,” Mark Winkler, who served as Region E coordinator for SEMA at the time, said. “(Kooyman) was very successful in micromanaging this event. He knew when to delegate and when not.”

Meetings were held late into the evening, Hollingshad said, regarding what the plan was for the following day.

“Recovery starts almost simultaneously as the incident itself,” Winkler said.

The first round of documentations and damage assessments were completed the next morning in the daylight.

First round assessments totaled an estimated $795,000 in damages and 75 homes and businesses effected by the tornado, Hollingshad said.

The city of Malden didn’t qualify for any state or federal help.

According to Winkler, 300 homes had to be damaged. The state of Missouri must occur over $8 million in damages to participate in the federal system, then if approved, local jurisdictions can participate.

“In this case, no one else was impacted and it was not close to $8 million, so no public assistance from FEMA was received,” Winkler said.

The final assessment estimated close to $1 million in damages and 115 homes effected, but still not enough for the city of Malden to qualify for state or federal help.

Winkler added many factors go into determining individual assistance declarations including severity, magnitude and demographics.

Once numbers were turned in to the state from Malden and then to FEMA, Winkler said that is where it stopped.

“They didn’t have the numbers,” he said.

Malden also did not qualify for the small business administrative loan program because most of the homes damaged were renters, which is “a whole different thing,” Winkler said.

“How do you put a price tag on someone’s home,” Kooyman said. “It’s hard to tell them we are not going to get any help.”

While waiting for the long-term recovery committee to get going, Kooyman decided to set up a short-term recovery committee because, he said, “a lot of help was needed now.”

Donations began flowing in through a webpage raising $48,500 to help victims.

“We slowly started helping victims with that and opened our community center for shelter that the Red Cross managed for us,” Kooyman said.

While five individuals came to the shelter and one stayed a couple weeks, Kooyman said the hard part was convincing people they had to leave their homes because it was too dangerous.

Help was then received by the Missouri Department of Economic Development and Delta Regional Authority with $170,000 in combined funding to replace generators and disaster cleanup.

While several politicians came through Malden following the devastation for a photo opportunity and never seen again, Kooyman praised Congressman Jason Smith and his office for their help.

Kooyman said Smith called him the day after the tornado from Air Force 1 to see how he could help and continued to call for 22 days straight.

Six months later, the community is still in the recovery phase following the tornado.

Now that the storm has come and gone, as have many outside volunteer groups, Winkler reminded disaster recovery begins and ends at the local level.

To help offer advice in the event other communities experience a disaster, Winkler told the group about some of the ways to prepare ahead of time.

“Have meetings and organize community entities who deal primarily with human services, mass care, feeding and sheltering,” he said. “Meet regularly and talk about roles and responsibilities.”

He urged school officials in attendance to get in tune with their local emergency management program because more than likely, they will be tasked with housing citizens, especially if school is not in session.

Kooyman shared how the city of Malden was able to work with the school district following the tornado.

School was in session when the tornado hit and the district knew the students who were effected, Kooyman said, in the event they needed counseling.

“They had information (the city) didn’t have and (the city) had information they didn’t have,” he said. “Partnering with the schools to get information helped out.”

He also shared how many churches and residents in Malden wanted to help feed victims following the tornado, but for safety reasons, the health department must be involved.

Food must be prepared from a health department approved location to avoid sickness and contamination, Winkler said.

Malden was able to use the nutrition center and Meals on Wheels to bring food from the health department approved kitchens to the feeding site.

Two actions Malden took that Winkler applauded was setting up donations management for the volume of goods received and establishing a distribution system of the donations.

Communication is an important part of the recovery process as well.

“Leadership needs to make citizens feel they are their place to go,” Winkler said.

Smith agreed and praised her town for their great communication during the event.

“You need to communicate with the community and let them know what is happening every step of the way,” she said. “Because we were able to communicate where money was going it helped alleviate rumors.”

While there is no one way to communicate with everyone, Kooyman said the city took advantage of several outlets to reach citizens including inserts in electric bills, Facebook, newspaper, flyers at the coffee shop and text alerts.

“I want to thank Malden for stepping up the way they did,” Winkler said. “As most communities in Southeast Missouri would do, they took the bull by the horns, moved forward and they know they can rely on their neighbors.”