(ABC 6 News) – On Dec. 15, 2021, tornadoes hit Minnesota and Iowa for the first time ever in the month of December.

94 tornadoes touched down that day throughout the upper Midwest.

Two years later, the communities hit by these tornadoes have rebuilt and returned to normal. In small towns like Racine, Minn., residents lent each other a helping hand.

Even though some houses and businesses were damaged by the storm, by the next day most of the debris was cleaned up.

City council member John Renn says the tornado came and went in the blink of eye.

“It happened so fast that it was over, said and done with, before we even knew, really, what had happened,” said Renn.

Renn lives right behind AG Electrical Specialists, which had their exterior roof blown off into the road and damaging a house across the street.

“We had a lot of siding damage all around the house, the eaves were all taken off, they were all blown off, we had windows kind of damaged,” said Jack Underwood, owner of the damaged house.

While some in Racine were fortunate to not face much damage from these rare December tornadoes, people in Rudd, Iowa, were hit much harder. The tornadoes reduced some homes, as well as the public library, to rubble.

Likewise, in Hartland, Minn., the Arcadian Bank was destroyed.

In the last two years, the houses and businesses across all of these towns have rebuilt and reopened.

“Took a while to get this fixed, you know with insurance and stuff, and so finally probably last March we finally got it all done,” said Underwood.

Thankfully the community was ready to put the pieces back together.

“The next morning it was just, I mean everywhere you looked was people. By noon the next morning, it didn’t even look like the same,” said Renn.

Hopefully there won’t be anymore tornadoes in the area for a while, but if there are the community will rally together to help each other rebuild.