Tornado clean-up continues in Webster

By: Amanda Pitts

alpitts@abc6.com

@AmandaPittsTV

One day after a tornado touched down in Webster, the community is cleaning up the mess it left behind.

A pile of rubble is all that’s left of two buildings that had to be demolished after they suffered severe damage from the EF-1 tornado that hit Main Street the hardest on Saturday, leaving more than 40 people homeless and business owners left to rebuild.

"We was the lucky ones I guess. Roof damage, and one of the businesses signs went down." – John Tekelis, Northeast Pizza owner

Northeast Pizza got to open their doors Sunday, but other businesses didn’t. The 100mph winds destroyed one building that was for sale, and another that was home to a tattoo shop and a hair salon. They were torn down hours after the storm rolled through.

A few doors down from the demolished buildings is a local dance studio, where the owner is grateful the damage to her business wasn’t worse.

"Mother nature is a powerful force that’s for sure."

Kristen St. Laurent, owner and director of Dancer’s Sole, said the tornado blew the front windows of her studio in, and ripped apart one of the practice rooms.

"Within a matter of just a few minutes it went from bad to worse and we had to go down to our basement in our front space and literally lay down in a closet for about 20 minutes."

Luckily only a handful of people were inside as opposed to the nearly 200 kids who attend classes there.

"There’s water damage under the floor, on the floor, and half of our roof was ripped off."

Making matters worse, the studio’s competitive team was set to start a camp on Monday. Now they’ll have a new place to practice thanks to local cheer company Athletix. They’ve offered to share their space until Dancer’s Sole is back up and running.

"A lot of the other businesses had it much worse than we did so we are very thankful that the building is at least structurally sound and we can stay here."

(c) WLNE-TV 2018