Volunteers across Metro Detroit clean up, rebuild after tornado and storms

For the first time in three decades, the city of Detroit cleaning up from a tornado. Much of the devastation from yesterday's storm focused on the city's east side, but they're cleaning up in the suburbs as well. Fox News Lord Edwards live in Brighton and Scott Wolchek live in Detroit. And right now, cleanup continues on Detroit's east side after a tornado touchdown and caused widespread damage. Fox News. Scott Wolchek now alive on Bellevue Street. Scott, what's going on out there? Hey, Charlie. Well, you could see the cleanup is going down, but they got a lot of work on their hands. Take a look at this giant tree. I mean, just snapped like this, and this is very close to the epicenter where that tornado hit. So I'm walking with you down Bellevue. You can see right here. Look at all these trees back here just knocked down, and we've got branches, glass, everything just totally shattered out here. Even across the street, you can see a whole bunch of stuff. But look at this. So we talked with this guy who owns the house over on the right and all these trees from his neighbor's property and from across the street blew over toward his house. He's got a rod up in the roof. He's got just a whole bunch of troubles, and this is what it's like over here on the east side in the area that that tornado went. It went from around Mount Elliot and Werner all the way down to Belle Isle, and we've seen people out cleaning up Belle Isle today. It has been a total mess. The city is on it, and they're working on fixing everything up. Take a listen. Got a trees that you're looking at from next door. None of these trees is on my property. Wow. Yeah. What's with that rod up there? I don't know. That's pretty scary. That rod just went. That's a brand new roof and that rod tornado or something. Put that right through my roof. Bricks is still falling off my chimney. So if I try to walk through that way, I have to be very careful because the bricks are just sliding off. I just finished his house and just got it okay from the city because it caught fire and it cost about 150,000 to put it back together. And now look at it tore up again. What's going through your mind? Well, things like this happens. We haven't had a tornado through here ever since 2000 something. And so we're just blessed that he didn't tear up even more. I've been in the organization for 20 years, so I've seen a lot of damage and a lot of storms. What I saw on the east side today was unlike anything I have seen in my history. You go out and you assess damage and you try to make repairs. In many cases on the east side, the infrastructure is not there. It has simply been picked up by the tornadoes and moved to where wherever it was said. Charlie, you know, it's a bad situation when the D. T. Guy says he's never seen anything quite like this. Now they said that around 30,000 people in the city got their power knocked out by those storms. They're hoping to have 90% back online by tomorrow, 50% or so already back and everybody else is gonna have to wait until sunday and we know there's way more power outages across Metro Detroit for now reporting live on the east side. Scott Walchek Fox Studios. Scott, you may not know this and I don't want to stump you here, but do you know who's gonna have to pay the lion's share of the cost to fix your roof like like the person you interviewed or any of the other damage to the house or anything? I think it's I think it's probably gonna depend on a case by case basis right now. It seems like all the crews are trying to clear the streets and get the power back on. But with this, so you know, the guy that I talked to has got the rod up in his roof right over here. Uh, you know, you can still see the rod sticking out of there. Charlie, he says he's got insurance. So, you know, hopefully his insurance comes through and he was saying he hopes that FEMA, you know, might come through on this one because I mean, clearly you've got a city that was devastated. So I would imagine there's gonna be a way to make a claim somehow. But for now, I would report any type of damage that you have to the city and they say they're on it. They're just, you know, trying to go to the highest priority things first and priority is to get the power back, clean up everything, get the power back on and then let the insurance companies fight it out. All right, Scott, thanks for that report. Yeah, you know, they'll take a while fighting to and they will be probably too. All right, thanks, Scott. All right, let's stay in Detroit right now. Sky Fox now giving us a closer look at some of the damage as Scott was mentioning on Bell Isle. This includes the impact the high winds had on the historic Detroit Boat Club. Part of the concrete structure on the roof of the building. It just broke apart, scattering bricks and tiles across the roof. The Detroit Boat Club that dates back to 1902 and it's just east of the Bell Isle Bridge. And that's not the only damage on the island. Detroit residents volunteering to help clean up the area from debris left by the storm. The crews from outer from other state parks also volunteering their help in the way of tools and chainsaws, etcetera. Officials say luckily no state buildings were damaged. The biggest loss is some of the park's mature trees that were knocked down and will have to be replaced today. Park officials praise their volunteers for their tireless work. We always work with our volunteers. Our volunteers come out in the best of times and the worst of times. And this is such a good demonstration of the community that we've built here. Um, we have, you know, a thousands of folks that are part of our volunteer accord. So last night we put out a call and said, well, I was hit pretty significantly. We're not sure, obviously, if there was an actual tornado touchdown or just strong winds. But either way, things that were £2000 were moved. So we know that it was really serious. And you can tell when you look around the island. So on the far parks facebook page, officials announced that there is still some damaged areas left, but that volunteers helped cleared away the roadways, allowing the park to reopen and clean up crews. Not the only working crews working around the clock in Detroit and also is happening in places like Brighton. And that's where we find Fox News. Lauren Edwards. She is live. Lauren, what's going on in Brighton? Charlie Detroit was a sight to see. But so was it here in Brighton? I want to show you over to my right because there is a very large tree that snapped all the way in half and magically charlie magically it missed the house on the left, the house on the right. But I think it just shows just how powerful these storms were that came through here, knocking pretty much a lot of the trees out here down. But one of the best things, though, we've been out here for a few hours and one of the best things I've seen is that it really is all about neighbors helping neighbors. Take a listen. It's been pretty hectic and crazy. Um, not very much sleep. We have no power. Still, it went on at three a.m. Yesterday. Um, but it's been hectic. Thankfully, we have great neighbors that love to rally and they all helped clean up. And yeah, this was a surprise when we woke up at three. So look at this jeep. It just shows how powerful the storm was residents here on Walsh Drive in Brighton, taking care of one another, cutting down the trees, especially the large ones that were uprooted thursday storm, though, ripping through bright and 60 to 70 mile an hour winds. And then now the branches are everywhere, debris too. And now folks are without power, managing hour by hour, minute by minute, trying to get by and talking to insurance as well. Just about all the damage. And they say power may not come back for a few days. It's not something that I can't do. Like, I can rough it. It's not a huge deal for me, but like my kids, it gets hot in the house, stifling with no air conditioning. And then you don't ever know what the weather is going to do. Like, I'm looking over here and I can see that the clouds are getting dark again. Like, if it's gonna storm again, like, I have no clue. It's highly, highly frustrating. Yep. Highly frustrating. That is the word frustrated is the word we've been hearing a lot of. And this is just what it looks like in Brighton again and be a few days before any of the power comes back. And also this is a private road. So they know that getting help is just going to be a little bit harder, harder. Nevertheless, with all of your storm coverage, all of the cleanup coverage stick with Fox two for all updates. We'll be giving them to you as soon as we get them reporting live here in Brighton. Lauren Edwards Fox two news. Lauren DT said that they're going to get thousands of crews out there and they hope to have everyone back by sunday. Do you see any of the crews out there now? We did see some crews and it's so funny you said that because photojournalist Brett Lee Dickey was like, you should mention that and how we saw crews from Kentucky. So yes, they are out here. They are working around the clock in Detroit and outside of Detroit. Yeah, they've got crews coming in from all over to help out and they're working 17 hour shifts. I think it is. It's just incredible. And listen, give them some credit. We complain about D. D. But they're really working hard. So it's good to see them out there as well. All right, Lauren, thanks for that report.