HOLLY — Prowers County Commissioner Gene Millbrand got emotional after an otherwise stoic press conference in which local, county and state officials talked about grants, feasibility studies, tornado sirens and the revitalization of this stricken town.
“I performed both the funerals at my funeral home,” said the mortician and public official as he wiped his eyes with a hankerchief. He stood on a street lined by new houses — exactly one year after a tornado ripped up Highland Drive — along with about half the town.
“It’s been hard on everybody.”
On what is now an empty lot near where today’s press conference was held, Delores Burns, 76, died from her injuries after she was pulled from the rubble of her home. Next door, then-Mayor Tom Crum was seriously injured. He later sold the wrecked home and moved out of town.
On the south side of town, Rosemary Rosales Puga, 29, died when she, her husband, Gustavo, and 3-year-old daughter Noelia were swept into the branches of a cottonwood tree behind their home. Gustavo broke ribs and vertebrae and Noelia escaped serious injury.
The town of Holly, four miles west of the Kansas state line, is marking the first anniversary of the tornado that swept through town, wrecking or demolishing 162 homes, injuring dozens and killing Puga and Burns.
At the hour the tornado struck, 8 p.m., more than 400 residents of this town of 1,100 crowded into the downtown senior center for an observance of the hour, though a prominent sign over the door warned “maximum capacity 70.”
“People want to put it behind them,” explained Evelyn Jones , as she stood in the line that snaked down the street outside. “This is something good for the town. Maybe it’s closure.”
Current Mayor Jerry Smith said the turnout “really shows what Holly is all about.”
The Rev. Dave Moorman of Holly United Methodist Church led a prayer and then the Holly Veterans of Foreign Wars post retired the flag that flew over the town the day of the twister.
“Suffering builds endurance,” Moorman said in his prayer. “Endurance builds character. Character builds hope, and hope never fades. And we’ve learned a lot about hope the past year.”
Puga’s family was in the audience.
Burns’ family issued a statement, thanking the community for its kindness.
“We know our entire community has suffered and grieved in one way or another. We are extremely proud to call ourselves members of the Holly community, a community that, in the face of huge adversity, has shown so much resilience and, at the same time, so much compassion.
“We know that Mom would have been pleased.”
At supper time, the 14-member sophomore class at Holly High School held a benefit dinner for visiting officials, volunteers and emergency workers who had helped the town. They served plates of barbecue in the school lunchroom, where the American Red Cross had served most of the 5,000 meals it provide in the twister’s aftermath.
Jeff Siegfried , the sophomore class treasurer, was playing computer games when the power died last year, he said. The family rushed into the basement, two blocks away from the path of the storm. The family didn’t say a word, just exchanged stunned glances at the hellish noise outside.
He looked out a small window, to see lightning crackling in the churning sky on each side, but a black monolith moving north, he said.
“I was just glad it didn’t get our house, thankful, I guess you could say,” Siegfried said between pouring glasses of iced tea.
The twister was on the ground less than two minutes but cut a 2.2-mile stretch of devastation this town won’t ever forget. The path of destruction was four blocks wide in downtown; nine blocks long from east to west.
“It’s the biggest thing that ever happened in Holly,” said Wade Davis, who lives just outside of town, as he ate lunch at Porky’s Parlor, the town’s only restaurant, about three blocks from where the storm roared through.
“The only other thing was when (former Holly resident) Roy Romer was elected governor, but that was a good thing. Roy never came back, and I hope neither does a tornado.”
People here disagree about whether the twister has changed things forever, some saying Holly’s prairie mettle is stronger than wind, that the effect was temporary. Others say people have changed as much as the landscape.
“I think people are friendlier,” said Donald Seufer, who runs a cattle operation just north of town with his brother, Dale. “People used to just say, ‘Hey,’ and go on. Now people ask how you’re doing, whether you need anything.”
Dale Seufer said residents used to ignore bad weather, even tornado watches.
“Now if a cloud comes up, people start looking for a hole.”
