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Cleanup continues one year after tornadoes

The cleanup in Hamburg continues.

HAMBURG, N.Y. -- The cleanup in Hamburg continues to this day, one year after a tornado ripped through the fairgrounds and several neighborhoods.

Michael Wright has lived in his Clark Street home in Hamburg since 1991. His backyard used to be lined with 20 100-foot tall pine trees, a row of them down the middle and a row along the property line on the left.

"Most people that came here in the summer never even knew there was a neighbor back there, and now it's wide open," Wright said.

It took a crew from Jamestown with three big logging trucks and a 100-foot tall crane days to clean up most of Michael's yard.

"It was three full days of cutting and logging," he said.

We first met the Wright family a year ago right after the tornado hit.

"I hear my dad, and he's yelling, 'everyone get down in the basement, there's a tornado, there's a tornado,' " said Wright’s son when we spoke with him in 2017.

"Stuck my head out and just saw a wall of water, and I could see the trees all starting to snap off and fall down. And I remember screaming to everybody in the house to get in the basement, that it was a, thought it was a tornado, and then we got the warnings on the phone after that,” Wright said.

Also hit hard was Marie Drive near the fairgrounds where trees fell on several homes. One home on the corner sits abandoned with tarps on the roof and logs in the backyard.

Wright found a new use for some of the logs left in his yard.

"We made some carvings out of a couple of the stumps with the hopes of making a little picnic area back there, but it's depressing. We sit on our patio every morning and think about how nice it used to look," he said.

He also planted three new pine trees in the back which, for now, stand just seven feet tall.

"It gives us a chance to redo everything and rethink everything. Before we had to do everything around the trees. And now we can kind of re envision it and do what we want," Wright said.

Wright says he is planning on using some of the leftover wood to make some new outdoor furniture for his family. He is also very thankful no one got hurt.

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