Chesterton resident Lowell Black wasn’t in town when the tornado struck last Wednesday.

But when he returned home around 1 p.m. Thursday, Black was astonished to find nearly every roadway in town open and cleared of debris.

“We like to complain about our property taxes,” Black told the Chesterton Tribune after Monday’s meeting of the Town Council. “But we get back a heck of a value.”

Property taxes are even higher in Chicago, he noted. “But do you think the streets would all be open in Chicago right now if the tornado had hit there?”

“Those folks, the town employees, they did a heck of a job,” Black said.

In fact Black was speaking for everyone at Monday’s meeting, as department heads and council members began the process of debriefing.

And there was a lot of praise and gratitude in the air.

Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg thanked the City of Valparaiso and the Porter County Highway Department for sending equipment and manpower. “They were essential to helping us open up the roadways and initiate debris collection,” he said.

Schnadenberg also thanked the towns of Porter and Griffith and INDOT for their generous offers of assistance, which for logistical reasons Schnadenberg was forced to decline.

Town Engineer Mark O’Dell, speaking on behalf of newly hired Superintendent James Shank, thanked Park Superintendent Bruce Mathias and two of his employees for helping the collections crew monitor the Utility’s far-flung lift stations in the hours without power.

Mathias himself got behind the controls of a backhoe to move debris away from the lift stations, O’Dell said.

Mathias, for his part, thanked his colleagues for help in clearing debris from Thomas Centennial Park and Chesterton Park.

Town Manager Bernie Doyle--who was in the thick of things from the beginning and remained on the scene all night, booted and rain-slickered at the command post--praised everyone, “for their seamless efforts going from a routine day to an emergency.”

Member Dave Cincoski, R-3rd--who as a serving member of the Chesterton Police Department was in the front ranks of the emergency responders--had this to say about the residents of this town. “I don’t want to remember this as the Tornado of ‘09,” he said. “I’m going to remember the humanity, the people pulling together, the people cooperating, the people helping out.”

In the first 48 hours after, Cincoski added, “there were zero calls of disturbances, neighbor complaints. Everybody wanted to get together and get along. I’d like to see that continue.”

Member Sharon Darnell, D-4th, had only this to say, short and to the point. “The fact that there were no injuries, what a blessing,” she said.

Member Jim Ton, R-1st, had this list of joys and concerns in the tornado’s wake.

Joys:

*“Nobody was killed, there were no serious injuries.”

*“We saw the department heads work together so well.”

*“The volunteers and people coming together.”

*Town Manager Doyle, who “was on line and could deal with the press, a trying job to begin with, but he proved an able spokesman for the town.” Added Ton, “Bernie, you handled yourself excellently.”

*The Chesterton Tribune, whose reporters did “a terrific job covering this whole event from beginning to end.”

Concerns:

*The bureaucrats who in their wisdom have determined that the tornado does not constitute a disaster. Tell that to the folks who lived in the apartments on Brown Ave., to the Duneland School Corporation, to everyone who was affected by the tornado.

*The sirens which failed to activate. Phil Griffith, director of the Porter County Emergency Management Agency, has concluded that the malfunction of a 23-year-old control panel was responsible for that glitch.

*The “gawkers who meant no harm” in the hours immediately after the tornado hit but who “did get in the way,” Ton said. “Let emergency responders do their jobs. Stand back.”

It was Wednesday evening when Member Jeff Trout, R-2nd, visited the Chesterton Fire Station for a damage assessment. There he saw two women setting up a Red Cross table. Turns out, he said, that they were the daughters of the late Warren “Skip” Highwood, long-time fire chief.

“It goes pretty deep in this town,” Trout noted. “My hats off to everybody who participated.”

Perhaps the most dramatic account of the tornado’s passage through Chesterton was provided on Thursday--and published in that day’s edition of the Tribune--by President Emerson DeLaney, R-5th: his race against the funnel down Indian Boundary Road, Ind. 49, and then onto his property on 100E.

On Monday DeLaney had these special words of gratitude to News Radio 78, WBBM-AM in Chicago, for breaking into its programming and issuing a tornado warning for Chesterton.

It was that warning, DeLaney said, which alerted him to the danger. “If I hadn’t heard the warning, I wouldn’t have called home. And my son would probably have still been in his room when the tornado hit instead of safe in the basement.”

News Radio 78 was “on the spot.”