Grand Junction recovery process continues following deadly storm

GRAND JUNCTION, Tenn. — It’s been a little over a month since April’s tornado outbreak.

In the early morning hours of April 3, the town of Grand Junction was hit by an EF-3 tornado.

Friday, a WBBJ 7 Eyewitness crew visited to follow up with residents to check on the clean up effort.

Much of the downtown area, including city hall, is heavily damaged, with windows blown out, roofing torn away and bricks sheared off the sides of buildings.

One Grand Junction resident was able to give us an update.

“There was the Baptist Relief Association that came out with chainsaws and men, and came out with backhoes and track hoes and all that, and they cleared everyone’s driveways and then all the streets. Then the rapid response Amish and Mennonite ministry, and within the first few days, everything was drivable in our town,” said Vince McCalip, Grand Junction resident.

McCalip also told us that the morning after the tornado struck, deputies with Hardeman County Sherriff’s Department and officers from Tennessee Highway Patrol were out with chainsaws helping residents.

FEMA has promised reimbursement to the town when the working crews are paid by the town.

We asked McCalip how his situation was, and he says he is one of the few that received only little damage.

“We were out of electricity at my house for about four days. The storm  — it seems like we woke up on a Thursday morning and everything was torn up and by Sunday, after church, the electric department had had us hooked back up,” said McCalip.

Parts of Madison Avenue near the library and the town’s tornado safe room were the least damaged parts of town.

The tornado injured two and killed two on its path between Slayden, Mississippi and the community of Hebron also in Hardeman County.

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