ARLINGTON -- More than three months after a tornado tore through his southwest Arlington neighborhood, Brian Schopf's house remains uninhabitable.
Schopf's Moselle Drive home, with collapsed walls, caved-in ceilings and a torn-off roof, was one of more than 500 buildings damaged April 3 when an EF-2 tornado touched down in three areas between U.S. 287 and Arkansas Lane along Arlington's western edge. The twister also damaged homes in Kennedale.While he has insurance, Schopf said electrical, plumbing and foundation problems have slowed his efforts to rebuild. While nearby affected homes have either been torn down to their slabs or repaired, Schopf said his renovations likely won't be completed for three more months."Things are just moving slow," said Schopf, who was contacted this week by the city's code compliance officers about his repair plans.All but a handful of Arlington's tornado-damaged homes have either been demolished, repaired or are undergoing repairs, city officials said. Code compliance officers are still monitoring at least seven affected houses that appear to be abandoned or have no obvious signs of repair work."We want to make sure the whole neighborhood experiences recovery," interim Deputy City Manager Jim Parajon said. "A house that has been substantially damaged has the potential to bring down recovery efforts and become an eyesore to the rest of the neighborhood. We really don't want that to happen."Arlington has been working with homeowners like Schopf to make sure uninhabitable homes are secured and that code violations are addressed. But the city has not been able to contact the owners of four heavily damaged homes, including one on Colebrook Trail, whose top floor was destroyed.If those owners or lien holders fail to make timely repairs, the city could seek a court order to demolish or rehabilitate the properties itself, said Neal Lucas, Code Compliance south field operations manager.City officials say that they understand repairs will take time but that they want to see signs of progress."In this case, we have hundreds of homes that were affected. Insurance response time is going to be slower. You have all these homes sitting around that need the same types of repairs. That is going to elongate this process," Lucas said.Arlington initially monitored about 20 properties where recovery efforts were slow or not apparent, Parajon said. Though many have since shown progress, code compliance officers are still stumbling upon homes with significant damage, Lucas said.While inspecting a house on Lasalle Drive this week, Lucas said officers identified another home where a tree had fallen through the roof but the roof had not been fixed."There are lots and lots of repairs going on and probably will be for quite a while," Lucas said.Susan Schrock, 817-709-7578Twitter: @susanschrockHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
