Trenton Still Cleaning Up From Spring Storms
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It has now been six months since destructive storms took aim at Gibson County, and debris from the April storms still litters part of Trenton. Sammy Dickey has been the Trenton City Recorder for about 20 years, but for the past six months, his role has changed. “I’ve been here since March 8,” Dickey said. “The storm came through a week or two after that, I think. From there it’s been lots of trees and limbs.” Dickey has instead been working with the city’s Street Department, and he is still helping them clean up the trees damaged from the spring tornadoes. The Oakland Cemetery used to look a lot worse. “It looked like a war zone all over town,” Dickey said. “The cemetery itself had between 25 and 30 trees down and some of them were monsters.” Dickey said they removed most of what was in the cemetery before, but they still have to take care of some large limbs. “We have some fencing and some buildings we need to put back that were blown down in the April storms,” Mayor Tony Burriss said. Just this week, the city council approved bids to rebuild the street department facility and cemetery fencing at a cost of close to $26,000. That doesn’t include the more than $100,000 the rest of the damage has cost them. “The great thing is is we have really good insurance, so some of this money will come back in insurance premiums, and we’re also going to be able to get some help from FEMA to help reimburse us for damage,” Burriss said. The city said it will take them 30 days to build the new Street Department building, and another week before the new fence will go up. Mayor Burriss said he does not know when the city will get reimbursed by FEMA, but he believes they will get close to what it costs to clean up the debris.
