MENASHA, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Missing roofs, walls, and windows have become a familiar sight in Menasha as homeowners continue to pick up the pieces following the July tornado.
However, work on some homes has come to a screeching halt.
“It’s been a lot of ups and downs with insurance and unfortunately the city of Menasha,” said homeowner Erica Powell. “We’ve had several meetings with them that we conducted and the raze order process has been extensive just to be able to demolish our home whether we choose to rebuild or we choose to just demolish it.”
Powell and Mitchell Deniswicz have been working with their insurance to demolish their home.
Without an approved raze order from the city, their insurance won’t pay enough to cover the cost.
“We’ve just been kind of waiting on answers from the city,” Deniswicz explained. “And it’s just been super frustrating because every time that we call or contact somebody, we haven’t gotten an answer. And we know we’re not the only ones going through it.”
Menasha Community Development Director Andrew Dane says there’s a reason for the delay.
When the city issues a raze order, it gives the homeowner 30 days to demolish. If not done in that time, the city does it and bills them for the work.
“If we would’ve gone out right away and issued these raze orders, that puts people who are still trying to sort their lives out in a difficult bind,” Dane said. “It adds a whole other level of stress to somebody if they get issued a raze order and they still haven’t heard back from their insurance company.”
Powell and Deniswicz said they met with Dane to discuss getting a raze order for their home. They were told the raze order would come as soon as Friday.
Dane and his team has added more staff and a new inspector to get through the orders as quickly as possible.
“We have just issued our first one this week, we’ve got another raft of 8 raze orders that citizens have requested that we’re processing this week and plan to serve this week and next week,” he told us.
Relief looks to be on the horizon for residents left in limbo by Mother Nature’s destructive forces.
