The town of Parkersburg, Iowa, is 84 miles due south of Austin. It has eight churches, a few restaurants and 1,800 people.

It’s annual hometown celebration is called “Fun Days,” even though Parkersburg has suffered more tragedy in the past 13 months than most towns see in their lifetime.

I don’t imagine Austin has all that much in common with Parkersburg, but they have at least a few things.

In both towns, churches play a huge role, and both have experienced a ravaging tornado within the past two years.

Austin’s thunderstorm this month brought an EF2 twister with winds gusting up to 135 mph. On May 25, 2008, an EF5 tornado sliced through Parkersburg like it was butter. Winds were in excess of 200 mph.

“I was in the basement,” said Virgil Goodrich, director of Parkersburg Economic Development and former school superintendent. “And when it was over with, I had no house.”

That tornado left six people dead, destroyed 280 houses and blew away most of the high school.

More people could have died, too.

A young female with two kids (she is their aunt) took cover in a local car wash during the storm. Probably realizing what was going to happen next, she got out of her car with the kids and went on a mad dash in search of shelter. She came to the home of Goodrich, who took her and the kids down to his basement to be with he and his wife.

“When we went back to get her car, we couldn’t even see it; it was covered in brick,” Goodrich said. “They would have been killed.”

More than a year later, the town is rebounding.

Goodrich rebuilt his home and moved into it two weeks ago. Other homes have been rebuilt. Some residents have moved away, while others have moved to town. The new high school is expected to open this fall.

“It’s been great,” Goodrich said. “We have 180 houses that are going up.”

Talking to Goodrich and some of the other folks in Parkersburg, I was amazed with the immense amount of optimism they have and their support for each other in light of such a devastating tragedy.

Some residents said it stems from the town’s strong faith.

“We have eight churches, and none of them suffered any substantial damage,” Goodrich said. “We all believe there was a reason for that.”

If the tornado wasn’t enough, Parkersburg was dealt another tragedy last week when Aplington-Parkersburg High School football coach Ed Thomas was gunned downed and killed at the school’s weight room.

A 24-year-old man has been accused of the crime, and Goodrich said the town has taken the shooting harder than the tornado.

“We can rebuild a town, but we can never replace him,” Goodrich said of Thomas, who was also the athletic director. “He was tremendous. His goal was not to win football games, but to turn boys and girls into men and women who could be good parents and good fathers and mothers and good people. But he did win his share of football games.”

The Rev. Dennis Quint, pastor of St. Patrick Catholic Church in Parkersburg, where Goodrich attends, shares the same optimism as many of the other townspeople.

“We’re very blessed as a town, first dealing with natural evil and then moral evil and in both circumstances we can really see the benefits of faith as a foundation in the lives of our families,” he said.