A day they’ll ; never forget; A year later, Kent Island ; reflects on tornado’s force

Sunflowers, coneflowers and forget-me-nots.

Chris Wiseman has never planted any of these in the garden of her Bay City home on Kent Island. But they sprouted haphazardly this spring and thrived. When she digs them up they come right back.

For her, they're a reminder of the tornado that devastated Kent Island in the early hours of July 24, 2017. She's sure they came with the 110 mph winds that left a trail of destruction 2.37 miles long and about 150 yards wide, damaging 233 properties with at least 11 destroyed across the island.

But she doesn't need to look at the flowers- reminders are all around her.

One year later, the worst of the damage has been hauled away and repaired, thanks partly to neighbors helping neighbors. Yet Kent Island is still a community scarred by scattered blue rooftarps, scorched yards stripped of the shade of lost trees and the lingering fear of storms to come.

Bay City neighbors like Kathy and Don Trotter have new homes and cars, but keep mementos of the tornado they'll never forget. Anne Arundel County police officer Paul Sullivan will move back into his rebuilt Ellendale townhome by the end of August, with the hope of returning to a normal life. Farmer John's produce stand was rebuilt and reopened on Romancoke Road in May but may shut down by year's end, marking the end of a 60-year-old institution in Stevensville.

Wiseman woke up early that morning to the sound of water gushing through her home. She stepped out onto the massive tree branch that crashed through her living room ceiling, instead of stepping on her hardwood floors. She saw the notification on her cellphone that a tornado was coming after it had already blown through.

Her home has been rebuilt, thanks to insurance.

"It looks like my home now," she said.

While the inside of her house feels familiar, Wiseman is still adjusting to her new yard.

What used to be her own shady forest is now a sun-drenched field after Wiseman lost more than 30 trees behind her house. Wiseman had never been able to see her neighbors' houses before, but now she can see not just her immediate neighbors, but those two or three houses over. The exposure feels strange to them.

A cluster of flowers she planted out back were not as sun-loving as the ones the tornado planted for her. With no shade, they are now brown and crispy. Recently, she burned her hand opening her front door. The handle had always been shaded by trees.

"I think instead of Bay City we should change the name to Sun City," she joked.

Some reminders are tangible; some are not.

Kathy and Don Trotter keep a chunk of the tree that fell on two of their cars, totaling one, on display in their foyer. "We survived 2017 tornado!" Kathy Trotter, 57, wrote on the wood in magic marker, adding a heart with their names inside. When he paved a new path through the backyard, Don, 69, engraved the date of the tornado.

They don't plan on forgetting what Kent Island went through. They couldn't if they tried.

Trotter said she woke up that night with pain in her side. Looking back, she thinks it was caused by the barometric pressure change brought on by the approaching tornado. Her husband was sleeping beside her when she got the alert on her phone.

"(The wind) sounded like a freight train. I've never seen wind like this in my life," Don Trotter said. "She was just beside herself. To this day, she hears we're going to get a thunderstorm and she's constantly on her phone looking at the weather app. I tell her lightning doesn't strike twice, but she's traumatized. We've had some heavy downpours and she really gets upset by it."

For the Trotters, recovery isn't just about a new sidewalk or replaced cars. It's about community.

Don Trotter recalled walking through his neighborhood the morning after the storm not just to help with debris, but to help neighbors having trouble with their insurance. Since Trotter works at a company insuring small businesses, he wanted to help advocate for his neighbors.

"That's how I got to meet everybody," he said. "Before you would drive down the road and someone would beep their horn at you and you would wave but wouldn't know who they are. Now we know who they are. We know all our neighbors by name."

The Trottersremember the 30-year-old oak tree uprooted from their yard, but they also remember people like Lucy Kruse and Scott Saunders who created a tree planting coalition to get $40,000 worth of new trees planted on the island.

Kruse, who lives on Kent Island but was not affected by the storm, knew she had to do something to help her neighbors. Through Facebook, she rallied with strangers like Saunders to organize volunteers to simultaneously remove debris and plant trees. One weekend in October, Kruse said her group planted 400 trees.

"Getting those people just something as simple as trees did a lot to restore their hope that life was eventually going to come back to normal," Kruse said.

The Trotters are also thankful for the Queen Anne's County commissioner and Gov. Larry Hogan's staff who showed up that morning, and for people like Inge Peters who rescued cats around the Island- among them five kittens whose mother was crushed under a fallen tree. Today, those kittens all have homes in Bay City.

Not everyone is as fortunate as the Trotters and Wiseman, and they know it. Some homes have yet to be rebuilt.

"It was nice to see the trees brought back to life in spring," Kathy Trotter said. "The rebirth of a big old oak, those are things you appreciate. But there are still blue tarps. It's sad."

Anne Arundel County Police officer Paul Sullivan was able to keep his family in Stevensville after the storm, but they're eager to move back into their rebuilt home next month. When they return, he said, they have one goal: "Just go back and be normal."

Though many have their homes, and their cars and their trees back, "normal" may not ever be the way things are again. Not completely.

Farmer John's produce stand, a longtime Kent Island favorite, is at a crossroads. Todd Cimaglia, 45, who has sold produce, plants and snowballs at the stand for the last decade, was overseas when he got the tornado alert on his phone. Then he got the call from his wife.

"Todd, I just went by the stand... it's all gone."

The stand had been blown about 100 yards into the woods behind Romancoke Road in Stevensville, yet the daycare center and gas station on either side of it were untouched. Some of the stand's roof and refrigeration were found in a townhouse community about half a mile away. Price cards for produce were found as far as Queenstown, about 10 miles away.

Cimaglia was able to get the stand going again with assistance from a GoFundMe appeal organized by a friend, but just getting up and running again wasn't enough, he said. Once his lease expires at the end of the year, he said he will shut down because the land is being sold for development. So far he hasn't found another location for the stand.

"It's been a struggle," Cimaglia said. "If I knew back then what I knew now, I would have never gotten it going again."

Back in Bay City, Erin Pick plays with her toddler, Zoey, in their home that was rebuilt after nine months. The first sounds of the storm she heard came from the wrenching of a massive tree as it was uprooted and about to land on her home. Pick recalled insulation and ceiling tile showering her as she ran into Zoey's room. Rain was falling on the then 18-month-old's crib - the tree had landed about five feet above her.

Zoey doesn't remember that, but she does remember living in the house before the storm. Now she calls it "the new house."

In the kitchen of her home just steps from the Chesapeake Bay, Laura Phelps, 58, and herneighbor Kathy Trotter recalled how they first knew the storm was coming.

Hearing thunder and rain, Phelps walked onto the bedroom balcony that overlooks the bay. "I love thunderstorms so I said to (my partner), 'Hon, you gotta see this storm! It's beautiful!'"

Then she was faced with a wall of water. "It looked like we were in an aquarium," she recalled. "It looked like we were underwater."

Then she heard the tree crash on the Trotters' car.

Phelps and Trotter now dread every storm. Trotter anxiously checks the weather app on her phone. Instead of walking outside to admire an approaching storm, Phelps prays.

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Credit: By Selene San Felice - [email protected] - twitter.com/selenecapgaz

Caption: When Don and Kathy Trotter paved a new path through their backyard, they engraved the date of the tornado.

Chris Wiseman describes the damage done by fallen trees to her home on Kent Island during last year's tornado.

A surprise garden of coneflowers grew spontaneously in front of Chris Wiseman's home on Kent Island after last year's tornado.

Todd Cimaglia, owner of Farmer John's Produce on Kent Island, talks about his business' struggles after their stand was destroyed during last year's tornado.

A downed tree from last year's tornado remains where it fell.

Kathy Trotter holds a chunk of the tree limb that totaled the car belonging to her and her husband Don Trotter outside their Kent Island home during last year's tornado. The inscription reads," We survived 2017 Tornado!" with their names in a heart.

Joshua McKerrow, staff photos

Joshua McKerrow, staff PHOTOS