Clean Up Continues

In the aftermath of the Jan. 12th tornado, clean up continues throughout the region. One video narrator stated he'd never seen this much destruction, even after hurricanes in FL. Some homes got power back only a few days ago, a few are still without power, and trees and brush still fill residential yards and line the sides of roads after having been cleared from the middle of the road.

Griffin, and Spalding County, is one of seven counties that have been declared Federal Disaster areas. Locally there is estimated to be in excess of 17 million dollars in damage across the city and county. That number may grow.

Between the city of Griffin and Spalding County, roughly 2100 homes are damaged with an additional 100 or more completely destroyed. Those numbers may also grow. And that's not counting the damage to businesses and loss of revenue while they were closed due to damage or power outages.

Crews work to remove debris from roadsides

More than 150 line crew members are still out working on restoring power to areas still affected. This is a pole to pole response in some areas before power can be fully restored to homes, depending on what grid they're on. One house may have power and the one next to it may not. Because of the way power grids are laid out, that isn't unusual.

For those who know me, they know that I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, sometimes incorrectly referred to as Mormon. (Someday I may explain why the term Mormon is incorrect, but that's a discussion for another day.) Anyway, members of my church organized volunteer relief efforts and we had over 300 members show up on 2 different Saturdays. There's another volunteer effort scheduled for this coming Saturday and an even larger number is expected to turn out. It's wonderful to be part of a religion that donates so much of their time to help not only members, but the community at large. As an interesting side note, no churches of any denomination received any significant damage. Feel free to read anything into that you wish, I just thought it was interesting.

Yard cleanup before and after

Here's a funny story - after a previous disaster (not sure what it was) in Chattanooga, TN, a member of the church stepped up to organize local relief efforts which had volunteers from all over the area, including members and non-member community volunteers. He was splitting the workers into smaller groups and making sure each group had people with chain saws, trucks, relief supplies, making sure each group had people who knew the area, etc. A few days later someone from FEMA showed up to take over the organization of the volunteers. Everyone said "We don't need FEMA, we've got a Mormon!"

On the brighter side, Spring is just beginning to show her colors here. Grass is greening up and spring bulbs are just starting to bloom. Spring is definitely in the air!