Racine Family Rebuilds Home After December 2021 Tornado

(ABC 6 NEWS) – Three minutes. That’s all the time it took for an EF 1 tornado to move through Mower County, just passing by Racine.

The tornado moving a mile a minute, and right in the storms path was the Wolfgram Family’s home.

A year ago, it was destroyed. Now, things are looking a lot better for the family.

“We didn’t even know where to begin. How do you even pick up the pieces of your life that was taken away in an instant?” Alissa Wolfgram said. “I had a gut feeling that we should all go downstairs. I ran to the kids and said ‘Get Down, Get Down’ and I huddled on them in the corner and we had no idea what was happening.”

It was that decision to get to safety that saved their lives.

“I will never forget I can see it vividly. Walking up the stairs and seeing the home open to the sky,” Alissa said.

“Your family was all together down here, thinking about the unknown. What was that like?”

“It was really scary because not knowing what that next step was because we couldn’t get out of front door, our garage was caved in from the garage doors so we had to ask, how can we get everyone out of here,” Isaac Wolfgram said.

When the community of Racine learned what happened here, everyone wanted to help this family.

“I could not believe the outpouring of support. The day after the tornado we had so many friends, family, neighbors come over to help cleanup,” Alissa said.

And in a matter of time — the community would help fundraise over $27,000 dollars to help this family.

And throughout all of the trials and tribulations, the Wolfgram family thought of hope. Hope for the future, hope for better days.

“We had to demolish the home in April,” Alissa said.

All that was left of this home was the foundation it was built on. So the work began on building a new home.

“We moved into this house in September. To be here and to reminisce on what happened is very surreal to us,” Alissa said.

This was the Christmas tree the Wolfgram’s had last year. After their home was destroyed they celebrated in a Rochester Airbnb.

A year later, they put up a tree together.

“They called this the Christmas house. We made it work the best we could, and its something we’ll never forget,” Alissa said.

This family is built to last, they get through any challenge life throws at them.

“Having someone like you, I don’t know how we would have made it through, how our kids would have made it through. You’re just really strong for that,” Isaac said.

“We’re so much stronger for what we went through together, what we went through as a couple, it was every emotion possible. We’re so much stronger for that,” Alissa said.

The Wolfgram family is strong. They’ve learned that as long as they have each other, anything is possible.