Mayor: Moscow's biggest loss are residents

MOSCOW, Ohio - Bonnie Warman is starting a new life in Newport, Ky. Carolyn Brill has moved in with her kids in Williamsburg.

Warman and Brill are two of the roughly 30 residents who left Moscow for good after the EF3 tornado cut a quarter-mile path of destruction through the 197-year-old village that lives by the motto, “a peaceful spot on the river.” The tornado killed longtime village councilwoman Carol Forste, 64.

Village Administrator Sandra Ashba said 12 of Moscow’s 101 homes were destroyed and 19 suffered major damage. She knows of four homes that will never be rebuilt and about 30 residents, renters and homeowners who are not likely to return.

A 2012 village audit shows Moscow’s 1 percent income tax represented less than half a percent of its $490,467 in 2011 cash receipts. Mayor Tim Suter said most of Moscow’s revenue comes from property taxes on the Zimmer Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant that covers the village’s northern edge.

“Certainly the loss of one life here in the village was traumatic,” Suter said. “But the big long-term impact is the families who’d been here for a long time are no longer here. That’s our biggest loss.”

Bonnie Warman, 54, has lived in Moscow since 1994, but the March 2 twister heavily damaged her home’s roof. She spent months fighting with an insurance adjuster and contractors before giving up on 27 Wells St. The storm-damaged property was listed for sale two months ago and Warman is buying a new home on E. 9th Street in Newport, where she plans to put a studio on the first floor, living above.

“It’s just been one headache after another,” she said. “I want my life to start again.”

Carolyn Brill, 70, also spent months haggling with her insurance company. Ultimately she decided she wouldn’t have enough money to repair the 142-year-old home she bought in 1997.  It’s been “for sale by owner” since January.

“I’m either going to sell the house as is, or I’ll have to have it demolished,” she said.

Suter expects the village will replace its lost residents and storm-damaged properties will eventually be demolished for new homes, or repaired and repopulated. On Thursday, the Post Office in the village officially reopened.

Homeowner Joel Knueven said Moscow has a beach-town flavor in the summer, with neighbors who grill out together, having grown closer through adversity.

“I think it will bounce back, or I wouldn’t be staying,” said Knueven, owner of Fee Villa, Moscow’s most famous property. It was the home of abolitionist Thomas Fee, who used it to shelter fugitive slaves in the 1800s. Knueven, a graphic design instructor at Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, is restoring the home as a single-family property. He is also trying to convince his contractor into buying and renovating nearby.

“Previously, you could just let the village run itself. But now it’s become very clear that we are the village. You can’t just leave things to other people,” Knueven said. “That clarity of what the village needs to be vibrant is one of the positives from the tornado.”