MENASHA, WI — Cleanup continues in Menasha following Monday's tornado, and community members are stepping up to help their neighbors recover.
Among the first to respond were Kevin Ziemer and Chris Ward, towing employees with Neenah Main Autobody. Thursday marked day four of their volunteer cleanup efforts.
Dozens of cars were destroyed or damaged in the storm, and trees fell on homes across the area. Neenah Main Autobody has been hauling away mangled vehicles free of charge since Monday, volunteering dozens of hours to help get the town cleaned up.
Ziemer, the company's towing manager, described the scope of the work he and Ward have taken on.
"I've taken trees off of houses already, I've already uprooted a couple cars and flipped them back over and got them off the train tracks," Ziemer said.
The work has not been without obstacles. A request to pick up a car on Plank Road Thursday could not be completed because live wires hanging from destroyed utility poles blocked access to the vehicle.
"You try to get somewhere so you can try to help someone and you have to get turned around and you have a big tow truck and you're trying to get through places," Ziemer said.
The crew moved on to the next job just down the street, a garage destroyed in the tornado and flipped over onto a shed. Homeowner Gina Glover feared she might lose the structure entirely.
"It was built the year I got married to my husband and that's also really special," Glover said.
After several large pulls, Ziemer and Ward were able to save the shed, one of countless acts of neighbors helping neighbors playing out across Menasha.
Glover reflected on the strength of her community.
"Menasha is resilient, Menasha is a strong community, a group of hard working people that live here," Glover said.
Glover, whose damage is among dozens of cases described as unthinkable, said the road to recovery will be long.
"This is going to be a long time and news is fickle right people are going to move on in a couple weeks but we're not we're going to still be here doing this," Glover said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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