City assesses storm damage
Following six days of confusion and inconvenience while Mother Nature flexed her muscles just a little more than usual, Peabody seems to be getting back to normal.
The Red Cross cots have been returned. The senior center, Christian church basement, and American Legion building are restored to their original purpose. Citizens have gone back to work and students are back in school. The community landscape will look odd for some time to come, but overall the crisis is over.
Mayor Tom Schmidt said Sunday night there were a handful of houses still without power, but service lines or meters caused those problems. "Those problems are not something Westar can handle," Schmidt said. "They (the homeowners) will have to contact electrical contractors to get meters or service lines repaired.
"A lot of trees have been cleaned up, but there is still work to do."
Sunday afternoon council members, the mayor, and city department heads took a bus tour of Peabody to get an overview of neighborhoods that still needed help. "It was a north to south tour," said Schmidt. "It let us all see the same thing and then we knew where to assign city crews for additional work beginning Monday."
Schmidt said that temporary "emergency headquarters" set up at the fire station were closed Sunday evening. Monday morning city staff returned to work at the city building and city shop.
Schmidt also announced a meeting with county emergency preparedness manager Michelle Abbott-Becker in the coming weeks. "We will sit down with department heads and council members and assess what happened in Peabody," said Schmidt. "We need to determine what went right and what went wrong."
Peabody city administrator Jeff Benbrook added, "We also need to put in place a method for keeping our emergency preparedness plan up to date. We got caught a little off guard this time because some of the information was outdated."
Peabody suffered little structural damage to businesses or residences said Benbrook. The city is willing to help residents clear away tree limbs, but it will not trim trees or pick up limbs that have not been moved to the curb. "It would be best if people would get them moved this week," said Benbrook. "We have some people available now, but it will be slow going after this week."
Residents may take limbs and debris to the temporary burn site across from city park. The burn pit also is available, but may be muddy and difficult to access.
The state has announced that even though Marion County has been declared a disaster area, individuals are not eligible for funds for landscape damage, spoiled food, or the cost generators or fuel.
Marion County communities will meet with Federal Emergency Management Assistance (FEMA) personnel next week said Benbrook. At that time the city will be advised of the amount of aid for which it qualifies.
"All in all," said Benbrook, "we came out pretty well. We had great volunteers and people jumped in to help wherever they could. Even the officials with Westar said they couldn't have been more pleased. They couldn't say enough about our city workers and volunteers getting the limbs down and out of their way.
"Really, everyone did a great job and we were lucky. We were just inconvenienced for a few days."
