TAOPI, Minn. — Sometimes a community doesn't find out what it's made of until adversity hits... hard.
The small southern Minnesota city of Taopi received what could have been a knockout punch on April 12, 2022, when an EF2 tornado roared through under cover of darkness. Daylight revealed complete destruction, with only three buildings in the entire community spared damage.
“Half the town is gone,” City Clerk Jim Kiefer shared the day after the tornado. He told reporters of Taopi’s 22 homes, at least 10 were beyond repair with entire roofs and walls missing.
Anniversaries are a time of reflection, and twelve months after that terrible day residents see a community that refused to stay down, a place that is looking ahead rather than in the rear-view mirror.
"We're in pretty good shape," Kiefer reflected in a conversation with KARE 11 on the one-year anniversary of the tornado. "Come a long way in the past year."
WATCH: ONE YEAR LATER: Tornado rips through Taopi, Minnesota
The comeback story started almost immediately when the city council started holding daily meetings with most of Taopi's 61 residents for the first two weeks, keeping them in the loop on donations, rescue funds, contractor availability and just about every other topic. Decisions were made in the light, with transparency.
Kiefer says local builders dropped less pressing jobs to repair damaged homes in Taopi, and homeowners agreed that those whose structures were hardest hit and unliveable received priority.
Money can be a wedge in times of trouble, and yet Kiefer says there were no squabbles when it came to allocating $270,000 in donations Taopi received from generous Minnesotans and other benefactors. The money was split into three tiers: those whose homes were unliveable, those badly damaged but habitable, and residents whose homes and businesses were less impacted.
Twelve months after the tornado, Taopi's city clerk figures the population is down to 45 from the 61 registered in the census, but says that's partially due to two or three families that were displaced whose new homes are just being completed. That's pretty good, Kiefer figured... as the council originally feared everyone would leave. That changed when one resident announced they would be rebuilding, and others followed suit.
Four or five lots in town remain empty, the homes that once stood on them a distant memory. A new Taopi Town Hall, just remodeled when the tornado flattened it, is still in the planning stages and Kiefer says council meetings are currently held in the kitchen of Mayor Mary Huntley (who just happens to be his sister).
It is also true that from times of darkness can come the unexpected light of humanity. Taopi is rising again, mainly powered by the goodwill of small-town neighbors who decided to get closer instead of letting a moment of disaster pry them apart.
"Before the tornado, everyone lived their own life," Kiefer reflected. "After the tornado, you saw everybody every day, and now I really know them."
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