Photograph by Dilip Vishwanat
The tornado that swept through Sunset Hills just after noon on New Year’s Eve 2010 will last long in the town’s collective memory. “The area it affected was concentrated, but where it did touch down, it was devastating,” says 1st Ward Alderman Frank Hardy of the approximately 113 houses and 16 businesses that were damaged—some beyond repair.
Today, shock has given way to hard-knocks practicality. The dump trucks and volunteers have dispersed, taking the trees and debris with them. Roofs are being patched; insurance claims are being finalized. And still, the big-picture consequences have yet to fully reveal themselves.
“We’re only beginning to consider what the impact of this is and how we’re going to recuperate from it,” says Angie Suellentrop, a 20-year resident of Sunset Hills. Suellentrop is speaking of her family’s house, a brick ranch on Watson Road that was damaged by the storm, but her sentiments are applicable citywide. Those whose homes and businesses were destroyed must decide whether they’ll stay in Sunset Hills and rebuild in the same spot. “Some were old investment properties, and the landlords are questioning whether they want another rental in that location,” says Mayor Bill Nolan.
Rebuilt or not, the homes on Court Drive will never look the same. “Some of those houses were built in the 1940s,” Nolan says. (Sunset Hills was incorporated in 1957.) “Really, the city’s entire landscape stands to be changed.” Nolan cites at least 200 trees uprooted in Watson Trail Park; he surmises more than that were lost in surrounding neighborhoods. “One of the survivors pointed out that never before had she looked out her window and seen the traffic and the neon lights from her vantage point.”
It seems the tornado illustrated what Sunset Hills was made of. At one early cleanup effort, the city reported 500-plus volunteers. At press time, the City of Sunset Hills Tornado Assistance Fund had collected nearly $200,000 in donations. Hardy hopes to build upon the experience by developing an emergency preparedness plan. And Suellentrop’s view, though changed, is actually better. “We came home a couple days after the tornado, and we noticed that over the hill in the park, we could see the sun setting over Fenton,” she says. “That view, of course, is what Sunset Hills is named for, but we had never seen it before.”
