Cedar Valley residents have ties to ravaged city

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa --- A Cedar Falls real estate development company is reaching out to friends and families affected by the killer tornado in Moore, Okla., not far from where the company is helping build a major medical complex serving those injured.

Lockard Cos. of Cedar Falls has been working with the Norman Regional Health System in Norman, Okla., on development of the health system's 96-acre West Campus.

The campus is about an 18-minute drive south of Moore.

The tornado missed that campus by about four miles, said Ken Lockard said, company president.

However, another smaller Norman Regional medical facility in Moore was decimated, Lockard vice president Dave Wilson said.

Wilson called Norman Regional president and CEO David Whitaker and offered assistance. "We are going to try and help them get it back to order," Wilson said. "He said, 'We'll be calling you.'"

Not only is the West Campus in Norman receiving and treating people injured in the tornado, many of the staff working there have lost their homes, Ken Lockard said.

"One of our partners, an orthopedics firm, have a whole number of people that, when you go to their home, there's just a driveway. They have nothing," Ken Lockard said. "It reminds you of Parkersburg.

"We're thinking about adopting families down there," Lockard said, "kind of helping them out with clothing and shoes, all those thing you don't think you're ever going to need. You can just go into your closet and they're there. But you know what? There's no closet."

With the West Campus project in Norman, Lockard is overseeing the construction of a 125-bed hospital, two 80,000-square-feet medical office buildings, a hotel and more than 200,000 square feet of medical service and retail facilities.

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Cedar Valley residents have ties to ravaged city

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