Community Corner

Hazelwood Tornado Caused more than $4 Million in Damage

The St. Louis County Assessor's Office says preliminary numbers show the tornado that ripped through Hazelwood and Florissant caused about $4 million in damage to residential property.

assessing damage from the April 10 tornado that ripped through the area.

He said he now can confirm about $4 million in damage from the tornado to residential property alone.

"This doesn't include commercial property," Zimmerman said. "It looks like there is about $3.5 million in uninhabitable property, and about $500,000 of moderate damage to other property."

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To read more Hazelwood tornado coverage click here: Tornado Updates

This is a preliminary figure. Zimmerman said it will take speaking with all property owners to finalize the amount.

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"We have to interact with taxpayers and find out what we don't know about," he said. "Of the 100 or so properties out there we've only spoken with about 40 homeowners.

"If this is anything like what happened two years ago (See: Good Friday tornadoes that ripped through the area) it takes until an actual engineer comes in to see what the insurance adjusters may not have seen, which can sometimes double or triple that appraised damage."

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Zimmerman said the main thing is serving as customer service to the residents.

"This is about us trying to treat taxpayers right," he said. "If you don't have a home anymore, or have a house that you can't live in, we don't want to paying taxes on it."

Ideally the assessor's office would like to make life a bit easier on impacted North County residents as they prepare to rebuild.

"Our office is trying to be proactive and go out and seek homeowners," Zimmerman said. "We can save them the trouble of later on having to appeal a bill when they have other things more important to deal with."

Read more about how the assessor calculates damage and assesses property value here: St. Louis County Assessing Financial Impact of Hazelwood Tornado Damage


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