Community of Valley City comes together to help out those hardest hit by storms

VALLEY CITY, N.D. (KVRR) – “It was completely surreal driving up the next day, during the daylight to actually see everything gone, but the house was still standing, and that’s where they were at when the tornado hit.”

This is the scene at Nicole Rogers elderly parents home, where they were inside of this house behind me when a tornado moved through, tearing up trees and causing devastation, throwing cars over the hills behind me, but now they’re getting help from members of the local community, students as young as second grade and as old as seniors have come out to volunteer and help them get back on their feet.

“It is things like this that you never think that you’re going to be part of, or your friends are going to be part of, or their families are and it happens, and the only way that we can help right now is to do what we’re doing is help pick up pieces of the devastation.”

In Valley City the storms wiped out power for much of the town, leaving trees and powerlines strewn across roads.

“We’ve had 25 plus power poles go down, and over eight transformers current count go down. So we’ve been around the clock pretty much since Friday evening.”

And it was that same drive to help each other out that pushed those recovery efforts on.

“When people need aid, they’ll come, they’ll come to the rescue. And I think that’s pretty much what happens in general around here.”

For Nicole, it’s a connection she couldn’t be more thankful for, as her parents try to rebuild.

“So we’re very, very grateful that they’re okay.”

And so work is going to continue, both here on the farmstead and at other homes affected by these devastating storms.