Pickup of debris in Dresden to begin Thursday
DRESDEN, Tenn. — Nearly six months ago a tornado struck Dresden.
The cleaning process to remove a tower of debris in the town will start Thursday. The pile has pieces of people’s homes, clothing, car parts. You name it.
The process is the next step to getting debris out so that the construction process can finally begin to get the town to a new normal.
“They’re going to start at the large pile that’s located next to the water tower, and they’re going to work on it. But they’re also potentially going to be working on other streets, getting up the piles that are along the street,” said Dresden Mayor Jeff Washburn said.
Washburn says the process will take about a month to go through the city the first time, and if needed, there will be second or even a third trip made.
“We’re really excited that it’s happening. We’ve waited since Dec. 10 to get started, and we’ve made a great effort for the first month. And then our volunteers started stacking up,” Washburn said. “We’re hopeful that very soon our community is going to look a whole lot like normal again.”
Washburn says even after such devastation, the future of Dresden is very promising.
“Although we lost a lot of buildings, like right behind me, we’re seeing a lot of rebuilding. And people are building back better and usually larger than they were before, which is a good thing,” Washburn said.
The first part of cleanup will start Thursday at 6 a.m.
Washburn says when thinking about the full construction process of Dresden, getting it back to a new normal could take at least two years.
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