SHELBY — Russell and Kelly Cushman get a little nervous when the wind blows too hard.
Their caution is for good reason – one year ago on April 14, the Cushmans were swept up in the tornado that barreled through the south side of the city of Shelby.
The couple was driving on Technology Parkway on their way to Core Community Church when a wall of dust, dirt and mud came at them. Their black Mazda CX5 went airborne, flipping over and over before eventually coming to rest nearly 100 yards away from its origin point.
“We never saw the tornado coming, we were just in it,” Russell Cushman said days after the incident.
One year later, in the midst of another crisis – this time on a global scale – the Cushmans joked they were rethinking their move to Ohio.
“This has been something we’ve added to our confidence that things will pass, especially right now with this COVID-19 stuff,” Cushman said. “After going through something that traumatic mentally, it made us live a little bolder. It became something defining in our family.”
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On Sunday, April 14, 2019, a long track tornado began about three miles southwest of Shelby around 4:42 p.m. then tracked 17 miles northeast to about five miles north of Olivesburg, reaching its endpoint at approximately 5 p.m.
The official damage survey released by the National Weather Service on April 15, 2019 classified the Shelby tornado as an F2 on the Fujita tornado damage scale. The tornado reached its maximum width of half a mile, with wind speeds reaching a maximum of 120-125 miles per hour.
The most significant damage from the tornado was located on the southeast and east side of Shelby, from State Route 96 where the Bly home was significantly damaged, to the Rocket Chevrolet dealership along State Route 39.
The Richland County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) assessed 179 locations in the city of Shelby and in Sharon, Jackson, Cass, Franklin, Blooming Grove and Butler townships.
These locations included residential structures, out buildings, unattached garages, barns and any other standing structures. Of these, 16 structures were destroyed, 30 had major damage, 26 had minor damage, and 107 were affected.
Shelby Utilities Director John Ensman said the financial impact of the tornado to the city of Shelby was approximately $230,000, absorbed by the city’s electric fund.
As the tornado passed and the power was out that day, Ensman recalls saying to his wife as he left home to assess the damage, “This isn’t going to be good and I’m going to be a while.”
“My mind raced in prayers in hopes nobody was injured and then shifted to the integrity of the George Hawk substation and the Mickey Road water tower,” Ensman said. “Both structures were spared from any major damage.
“If the tornado had traveled just to the north by a quarter to half a mile, the destruction to the electric system would have been devastating and forced the rebuild cost probably into the millions.”
The city of Shelby lost approximately 60 percent of its power that Sunday. Within three hours 95 percent of power was restored, and power in the business district of Mansfield Avenue followed in the next couple of days. Ensman noted 15 other public power communities assisted Shelby in the effort to restore power.
“I remember the outpouring of support, kind words, and the abundance of good food that was being brought in from area restaurants,” Ensman said. “The mutual aid crews from the other communities that traveled to Shelby to assist in the rebuild said they never had a community that fed them so well.”
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The first priority in recovery after the April 14 tornado was the main business stretch of State Route 39, which bore the brunt of damage within city limits and resulted in an extensive amount of downed power lines.
No business was hit harder than the Rocket Chevrolet dealership at 233 Mansfield Avenue, which found itself directly in the path of the tornado.
“We were all home, nobody was working because it was a Sunday,” recalled general manager Tyler Armstead. “Then my phone started blowing up saying Rocket got hit by a tornado. It was surreal, you see a lot of things on television but until you see it firsthand…
“You don’t have a handbook for a tornado, you can’t really prepare for that, so where do you start? You have all these employees, your inventory is destroyed, your building is gone, where do we begin?”
Nearly a month after the tornado, the dealership was back on its feet, selling vehicles from a couple trailers parked in their lot. Only 40 of the 150 vehicles in stock were in decent condition, and those were sold within 3 weeks.
One year after the tornado, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, the steel frame for the new Rocket Chevrolet building has been raised and the dealership continues to rebuild its inventory.
Armstead said the hope is to open the new facility this fall. In the meantime, Rocket is still open for business in the sales and service departments.
“Shelby isn’t a huge community, but it’s a great location,” he said. “The people are great…the second this hit, the goal was always to rebuild. We have a lot of longevity here, it was really the only option.
“It’s been a pretty wild 12 months, but we’ve weathered the storm.”
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Thinking back to one year ago, three things come to mind for Shelby Mayor Steve Schag: Compassion, character and cooperation.
“The compassion that was exhibited surrounding that event was unbelievable,” Schag said. “People of the community of Shelby and surrounding communities all through Richland County, the outpouring of volunteers and different agencies asking what we can do, that to me said a lot.”
Schag especially praised the teamwork of Shelby’s police, fire and service departments, between men who have known each other almost their entire lives.
“These guys work together week in and week out, many of them having graduated within a few years of each other from Shelby High School, so there’s a Shelby pride that shines through,” he said. “That helped us within those first few hours and days, and really set the pace for what recovery would look like.”
The benefit of hindsight also allows for the mayor to reflect on lessons the city may have learned from the crisis. At the time, Shelby was criticized for the effectiveness of its tornado sirens.
The Shelby Police Department is responsible for manually activating the city’s tornado sirens, which are typically only used when a tornado warning is issued specifically for northern Richland County. Shelby Police Chief Lance Combs said the April 14 tornado took the department by surprise.
“In a very short time window, we got an alert late after we got a general warning for Richland County,” Combs said on April 15. “We were waiting to push that button, then we got a report of a funnel cloud heading towards State Route 39. We had approximately 3 to 5 minutes of notice once the sirens were activated.”
Schag emphasized the purpose of the tornado sirens is to alert people outside of their homes who are not equipped with any other notifications. Electronic notifications also supplement the sirens as warning signals for imminent severe weather.
“We have our monthly siren tests and we are very vigilant about keeping sirens working properly for instances like these,” Schag said. “Some of the sirens have some age on them, but we are constantly upgrading the individual sirens on a regular basis when needed.”
Ensman said one lesson he took away from the experience was that a generator was needed for City Hall.
“We knew this before the tornado and we have been planning to install a unit to back up City Hall during a power outage, but the tornado put the plan into action,” Ensman said. “A generator has been installed this month and the unit will be going through its start-up testing (soon).”
Ultimately, Schag believes the city is prepared as it can be should another extreme weather event occur.
“There’s an element of personal responsibility during times of crisis, but we are as prepared as any city can be,” he said.
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For the Cushmans, the lesson they’ve taken away one year after the Shelby tornado is you can’t live your life in fear.
“We don’t have time for that,” Kelly Cushman said. “Fear just holds us back from what we can be, and what could be. It’s not always easy every day, but that’s something we strive for.”
Russell Cushman added that while it’s important not to succumb to fear, their goal moving forward is to be wise and fearless.
“We say our prayers, take our vitamins, and we’ve both committed to living very active, healthy lifestyles, because you don’t know when you need to rely on your fortitude to get through things,” he said.
“Also, we’ll never confuse a tornado watch with a tornado warning again.”
