A Build Blitz is planned for Marshalltown homes hit by the tornado.
The folks from Habitat for Humanity have been taking advantage of this week’s weather to hold a “Blitz Build” on homes in Marshalltown affected by last July’s tornado.
Habitat helped work on 60 homes this winter to get them shored up through the federal Valor program. But that program was only to make the damaged homes livable. Habitat Iowa Executive Director Lisa Houser says this week’s blitz will continue or finish repairs on 30 to 40 houses.
“We hope to repair 100 homes in Marshalltown for tornado affected families in the calendar year 2019,” Houser says. She says the blitz is just the start for 2019. “We will continue to work on homes past this blitz. If you were not selected for the blitz event, that doesn’t mean you are not selected,” Houser explains. “We’re still continually taking applications, processing them, doing home assessments and getting people in the queue for down the road as we continue to do repairs.”
Houser adds the crews this week are pretty well manned with volunteers from all over the state.n some instances volunteers from outside of Iowa are joining in the effort to repair homes in Marshalltown. Iowa Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg will be among the volunteers chipping in on Friday.
(By Ken Huge, KFJB, Marshalltown/photo from Habitat for Humanity)