Reading recovery continues
Russ Morgan, russ@emporiagazette.com
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Despite the adversity they have faced after a tornado destroyed much of the town, residents of Reading are looking to come back bigger and better than before.
The change in Reading’s landscape since the tornado last May is stark and lasting, but on a local scale things are starting to get close to normal for the town. And though tired, residents and local businesses owners still are working hard and hope soon to get back on their feet.
In the past week, city officials were able to move back into the newly-repaired city hall building. Citizens State Bank and Trust, based in Woodbine, is almost ready to open its new branch in the building that formerly housed the Tightwad Bank. The new bank soon will set to the task of creating accounts for new customers. And after hard work from volunteers and Reading residents, the town’s other businesses are on the verge of getting back to where they were before the storm.
And they hope they can come back stronger than they were before.
The Miracle Cafe, Reading’s only restaurant, was one of the businesses destroyed in the tornado. After months of cleanup and rebuilding efforts, people in town look forward to its re-opening in the coming weeks. The cafe’s owner, Reta Jackson, has been working hard to get the restaurant up and running.
“I’m shooting to be able to have an open house on Halloween with the Reading people and then be open during the day for the rest of that week,” Jackson said. She hopes to have a grand re-opening on Friday, Nov. 4.
But with that hope comes frustration as well.
“I would like to be open by Nov. 4, but it may be Nov. 15,” she said. “And I hate that, because it seems like I’ve had to keep doing that. First it was August, then Aug. 15. Then September and Sept. 15. But that’s just the way it works. Everything takes time.”
The new Miracle Cafe will be a little bigger than the old one and will include a meeting room. It also will include effects rescued from the old cafe in the aftermath of the storm. Jackson said she hopes to evoke the same home-like feel of the old cafe.
“We’ve kept a lot of the same things,” Jackson said. “We took off all the wood, we took the corner cabinets and stuff like that, and we’re going to try to incorporate that back into the new Miracle. There’ll be open space for the farmers and ranchers, and we’ll decorate that for them, and I think I’m going to try and do a sports wall for the school.”
While the new restaurant will be a bit bigger than the old one, Jackson hopes to capture the same ambience. Customers of the old cafe liked it for its separate rooms and intimate appeal, and she doesn’t want to lose that.
“We want the same feel,” she said. “The reason people liked it is because it felt like coming home. It was like it was in somebody’s house and you were just there. I want that feel back, so we’re going to do everything we can so that it doesn’t necessarily feel like a restaurant, it just feels like home and that you’ve come to visit.”
Recently the insulation work on the new cafe has been finished, and crews are working to finish the electrical work and other details like exhaust fans and floors. In the meantime, Jackson has spent the last few weeks cooking plate lunches in the basement of the United Methodist Church for the various crews working in town.
“There’s no place for them to eat, so I’ve been preparing some meals over lunchtime,” she said. “So the guys at least can get something hot to eat and then go back to work and not have to take off and drive to Osage or Emporia or Lebo.”
Another of Reading’s major businesses destroyed in the storm is Reading Grain & Lumber, Inc. The town’s hallmark grain elevator was leveled by the tornado, but owner Brent Jones hopes to have his new business running in time to catch some of the bean harvest.
“In the last four weeks, things have really improved as far as in their speed to get things going again,” Jones said. “We had a phase this summer where we did a lot of concrete work and we got our bins up. We had some really good crews who worked all through that heat and didn’t complain and just worked their tails off.”
Though they are making progress on the new elevator, Jones has faced frustration throughout the process as well.
“We had made the decision to be up for corn harvest,” he said. “But maybe that was a little too optimistic.”
And like the new Miracle Cafe, the new grain elevator promises to be better than the one before it.
“We’ll have a larger capacity than what we had before the storm,” he said, “and also the leg will be bigger and faster.”
The elevator’s new leg will have double the speed of the old leg, which will increase the business’ speed and its ability to take grain.
Like Jackson, Jones chalks up the town’s progress to the hard work of residents and to the many volunteers who have offered support in both the cleanup and the recovery.
“Those first three weeks were the most critical as far as us being able to even have a chance to be up for harvest,” he said. “We owe all that to the people who were there for us after the storm. We just had a tremendous amount of support from our farmers, customers and even I guess you could say our competitors.”
And while work continues, it’s easy to understand that the process can be exhausting. But with winter coming on, the people will keep rebuilding. Still, they remain hopeful for a brighter future and are thankful for the help and support they have received.
“When you know that you haven’t been forgotten, that helps you keep plugging away and keep working hard,” Jones said. “The community has worked hard to get along and keep focus and keep rebuilding.”
Though it has been a long and tiring process, Jackson also is happy with the progress the town has made in its recovery, and is thankful for all the help and support the people of Reading have received.
“I think everybody is trying really hard,” she said. “We’re all headed in the same direction. We all want the same thing. We want our hometown back.”