AFTER THE WIND SETTLES

Rebuilding after a tornado has already taught me that nothing about this process is simple. I walked into this project with a hopeful budget — ideally sticking close to the full insurance payout — but that dream didn’t survive long. The original house was built in 1973, and unfortunately, decades-old mysteries quickly surfaced. One of the biggest? The septic system. I knew my dad had once drawn up a detailed map of the entire property showing exactly where the septic was loc