Back at it: Dunrobin chiropractor reopens after tornado wrecks office

The tornado that ripped through Dunrobinlast month may have destroyed Kelly Graham's chiropractic office, but it couldn't dent her resolve.

Ten days after tornado touched down and destroyed her office at the strip mall known to locals as the Dunrobin plaza, she reopened her practice just two kilometres down the road.

"I just felt that the best that I could help my community was to get back to work," she said.

"I know that people depend on us for their wellbeingand I just thought the best way that I could serve them was to get back to what I do best."

Chiropractor rebuilds after Dunrobin tornado strike

6 years ago

Duration 1:19

Chiropractor Kelly Graham reflects on losing her practice in when a tornado struck Dunrobin last month and her desire to rebuild.

Graham grew up in Dunrobin, and now lives there with her husband and five children. After working at other clinics in the Ottawa area, Graham opened her own practice at the plaza seven years ago.

"My heart and soul went into my practice and setting it up there,' she said.

Fortunately for Graham and her staff, they are closed on Friday afternoons, meaning the office was vacant when the storm hit.

The tornado damaged nearly the whole plaza. In Graham's office, awall had caved in from the liquor store next door, destroyingher entire reception area.

'It was really eeriebecause there were just pools of red wine on the floor, and just the red and the dark it was so disturbing."

The day after the storm, once the initial shock had settled, Graham immediately started considering where she could set up her practice.

Graham said she received several offers from friends and former colleagues to reopen in other parts of the Ottawa area, but she was wanted to stay in the community she grew up in.

"My instinct was 'I'm not leaving Dunrobin,'" she said.

Graham even went as far as asking her parents who live on the same road as the plaza if she could set up her practice in their detached garage.

Fortunately, a neighbour recommended a building that had been vacant for some time, just up the road from the plaza.

"I am so lucky. That was probably one of the more stressful things was figuring out what to do next."

The week following the storm Graham and her staff got to work putting up dry wall, putting in floors, and painting the office. Graham set a target of reopening the next Monday 10 days after the storm.

"She was here over twelve hour days, everyday," during that week, said Ember Forbes, Graham's chiropractic assistant.

They met their goal and were ready for business the next week. Her patients gave her a warm welcome for keeping a sense of continuity in the tornado-ravaged area, she said.

"The comments we heard on that Monday when we opened were 'Thank you for being here, we're so grateful. Thank you for remaining normal.'"