MARSHALLTOWN, Ia. — Paula Sprague thinks she could lose everything from the 144 mile-an-hour tornado that crippled her downtown Lost and Finned Pet Supply store.

More than a month after the destruction, her business still lacks full power and water. She's stuck in a back-and-forth with her insurance carrier, awaiting word on how much of the damage her policy will cover.

In the meantime, Sprague is doing what she can to serve her customers, delivering them specialty dog and cat food in her pickup truck and sending reptiles home with a part-time worker to care for them.

The shop — the only pet store between Ames and Cedar Rapids, she says — is her livelihood. And that livelihood has crumbled along with her store's walls and ceilings, which take on more water damage with each new summer storm.

"I cry a lot. I'm doing all I can do," said Sprague, whose husband has taken a night job delivering pizza to help make ends meet. "I'm feeling overwhelmed, but I know this chapter one way or another will come to an end."

Sprague is among hundreds of Marshalltown business owners and residents laboring to determine if and how they'll rebuild after the July 19 tornado barreled through town. It damaged or destroyed more than 600 homes, idled factory lines at a major employer and crippled the county courthouse in this community of some 27,500 people.

With much of the brush and debris hauled away, community leaders have pivoted to asking broader questions about the future of Marshalltown: What will be lost permanently, what can be replaced — and maybe, what good things might rise from the rubble?

MORE:'We need money': Marshalltown labors to rebuild businesses and homes after an EF-3 tornado plowed through town

'It hit a lot of poor people in this town'

A preliminary count showed 89 homes destroyed and 525 sustained major damage, though city leaders may revise those numbers. So it's no surprise that housing has emerged as one of the biggest priorities in the recovery effort.

"The quadrant of the community it hit is very low income," said Nancy Stevenson, executive director of the Marshalltown Area United Way. "And we’re finding a lot of people have no insurance or very little insurance."

To make matters worse, Marshalltown, like many communities, already lacked housing inventory — particularly low- and moderately-priced homes — before the July storm struck.

"That was something the city had been working on, but this put it on the forefront," Stevenson said. "It's not like we have apartments and other housing where these people can move in."

MORE:Rural Iowa has a housing crisis. Here's how a handful of communities are solving it.

Stevenson leads the Marshall County Family Long Term Recovery Committee. While some funds are available from the state or other assistance groups, there isn't enough to pay for the wholesale replacement of totaled homes.

"They’re going to have to do something with a loan or something else," she said.

Plans are underway to conduct door-by-door assessments to determine which homes are safe for long-term occupancy.

Many residents in the pummeled neighborhood camped in their yards or patched their storm-punctured roofs and walls with tarps. But Stevenson said those fixes can't last indefinitely.

"We live in Iowa," she said, "and in a couple months it's going to get cold."

Greg Smith, chairman of the Iowa Disaster Human Resource Council, said natural disasters often lead to migrations from the community as residents seek housing or work elsewhere.

"It is not unusual for the poorest of the community to become poorer after a disaster," he said.

Lenny Greene, whose wife owns a home in a damaged neighborhood, said many there are struggling to make repairs.

"It hit a lot of poor people in this town," he said.

His wife's house needs the entire roof replaced and he admits they were lucky to receive funding from the Region 6 Housing Trust Fund. Otherwise, they wouldn't have enough to replace the tarp that has kept the rain out, he said.

The retired couple lives off of Social Security income and the home is uninsured.

"We're scraping by," he said. "We don't have anything in savings. We don't have anything to draw back on."

Greene said the neighborhood, where trees have been stripped bare, is forever changed.

"It will never be the same as it was before," he said.

'It makes you think in new and different ways'

For all its troubles, Marshalltown was spared a bigger blow after two major employers — Lennox and JBS Swift & Co. — vowed to repair their tornado-damaged facilities.

JBS, the city's largest employer, donated $1 million to aid employees at its pork processing plant who were affected by the storm.

Lennox contributed $500,000 toward the tornado recovery effort. That factory, which was severely damaged, already has 350 employees back to work, according to a note to team members.

Workers still laid off can keep their health insurance and are eligible for financial assistance from the company.

But along Main Street, the tornado's path has threatened to leave gaping holes.

Academic research shows that up to 25 percent of businesses will close for good after a storm, said Steve Cain, a recently retired Purdue University extension disaster specialist.

Still, he expects Marshalltown's business community to bounce back.

"They won't go back to normal — normal’s gone," Cain said. "They’ll go back to a new normal. That new normal might be smaller. It might show growth."

Before the storm, about 90 percent of the 214 buildings in and around the town square were occupied, said Jenny Etter, executive director of the Marshalltown Central Business District.

Many businesses have reopened. Others, like McGregors Furniture, have temporarily relocated while they rebuild. Etter expects several storefronts will be demolished.

MORE:When a tornado devastated an Iowa town, it revealed something unexpected: Historic original architecture

But Etter said the storm will afford the community the opportunity to re-imagine its downtown core. There are already talks of adding green space in soon-to-be vacant lots.

And the city had hoped to place way-finding signs before the storm hit.

"Well, now half our signs are gone anyways," she said. "So it's an opportunity to do those things."

Etter also hopes the storm will provide an impetus to restore historic facades that have been covered up for years. Leaders are working to balance the desire to get businesses open quickly with the need to thoughtfully plan for the future, she said.

"There will be lots of opportunities that will present themselves," she said. "It makes you think in new and different ways."

Business owners 'facing a really tough decision'

Many downtown businesses do not have the insurance needed to cover the full cost of rebuilding, said Bobby Shomo, an independent insurance agent in town. He estimates at least half of those damaged are under-insured and some had no insurance at all.

The economics of downtown stores make them hard to insure: A building might sell for $100,000, but it could cost 50 times that to rebuild on Main Street, he said.

"If you insured it for $100,000 and it has half a million dollars of needed repair, you don't have the money to repair it," Shomo said. "So you’re not a lot different than uninsured at that point."

He said at least a dozen businesses don't have enough insurance to even cover initial debris removal and demolition.

"Those owners are facing a really tough decision," Shomo said, "that they honestly don't have a good answer for."

City ordinances require that business owners rebuild with more expensive materials such as brick and stone, rather than simply replacing the cheaper wood or metal facades that covered many storefronts. Likewise, some might have to add sprinkler systems to meet city code, Shomo said.

The Small Business Administration has made low-interest loans available to local businesses. But Shomo said many shop owners can't afford more debt.

Shomo is convinced the town will emerge stronger and the city will find a way to help downtown businesses. But that effort must first start with a complete inventory to determine how many businesses can be saved.

"We’ve got to figure out what we can keep and what we can’t," he said.

How to use a tornado as 'a catalyst'

As Marshalltown leaders put together a long-term recovery committee, they have looked to other storm-ravaged communities for advice. That includes Parkersburg, where seven people died in a 2008 tornado, and Cedar Rapids, where the surging Cedar River flooded much of the downtown core that same year.

"One of the things I told Marshalltown was one of the reasons we experienced what we experienced was so we could help them one day," said Chris Luhring, the current city administrator who was police chief when the tornado touched down in Parkersburg."It's nice to be able to pay it forward."

Parkersburg has offered advice on topics ranging from managing volunteers to documenting clean-up expenses for future reimbursement. Much of the available resources will depend on whether the community receives a presidential disaster declaration, Luhring said.

MORE:Gov. Kim Reynolds signs letter requesting Presidential Disaster Declaration for July 19 tornadoes

Even after the physical damage is repaired, Luhring said the people of Marshalltown would likely be affected by the storm for years.

"In 10 years from now, Marshalltown residents will be traveling to places hit by tornadoes because it's healing," he said.

In April 2000, a tornado blew through the downtown area of Parsons, Kansas, a town of 10,000 in the southeast corner of the state.

While it damaged 700 homes and 60 businesses, it also allowed locals to rethink and reinvest in their downtown, said Jim Zaleski, the city's economic development director and tourism marketer.

In the 1980s, an urban revitalization effort turned the downtown strip into a pedestrian mall. By the time the storm struck, more than 80 percent of the storefronts were vacant, he said.

"The tornado was a catalyst," Zaleski said. "The tornado forced the community to take some hard looks at what was going to happen over the next decade."

The city reopened the streets and added parking in front of and behind Main Street stores. A local agency offered no-interest loans from a revolving fund to restore storefronts.

Some buildings were demolished, leaving green space in their wake. Though smaller, the downtown is stronger nowadays, Zaleski said, with restaurants, shops and professional offices.

"I have 1½ vacancies," he said.

In Marshalltown, 'all kinds of new beginnings'

On a recent weekday morning, Sprague, the Marshalltown pet store owner, stopped at Marla's Headliner on Main for a color and cut.

"This is my make-myself-feel-good day," she said with a sad laugh.

Salon owner Marla Grabenbauer said her shop was spared significant damage, though scaffolding covered much of the building's facade where crews made repairs.

"It's awful," she said. "You carry such a sense of guilt."

She's owned the business for nearly 50 years and previously served on the Marshalltown City Council for 16 years.

Grabenbauer expects to see gaps on Main Street when all is said and done. But she said the storm gives the city a chance to rethink its declining retail landscape that has suffered from online competition.

"It's horrible, but it can be turned into a positive," she said.

Sprague, meanwhile, entertains the idea of closing her shop and finding some ordinary job. Working 9-to-5 could be nice, she muses.

"But I don't want that," she admits. "If I wanted that, I never would have opened my own business."

In Sprague's darkened store, a pair of white doves sing, surrounded by large displays of fish food and dog leashes. A horde of black and white baby mice shuffle about in a container on the front counter.

The water in the fish tanks has turned a murky green after weeks without power to operate filtration systems.

Even if she loses everything — the shop and the two apartments above it — even if she has to file bankruptcy, Sprague said she's lucky to still have a roof over her head. She has her husband, her kids, her dogs.

"If we have to restart, we can restart," she said. "We won't restart tomorrow, but we will restart."

While in the salon, Sprague received a text from her lone staffer that a gecko had just hatched that morning. Not long after, she brought the squirming little lizard down to the salon.

The shop owner shrieked in disgust while another stylist clutched her hands together in elation.

"I love babies," she gushed.

Sprague, too, can't help but admire the tiny creature. It's a reminder of why she opened her pet store in the first place.

"All kinds of new beginnings," she said.