It will be a long haul for the City of Jefferson to fully clean up the destruction that Monday’s derecho storm left behind.

As that continues, City Administrator Mike Palmer describes the damage that happened on city-owned property.

“There’s numerous large trees that went down in the cemetery and damaged a lot of stones. City buildings, there’s a little bit of damage on one of our buildings that we are remodeling that (was) former Angie’s Tea Garden. It was mainly loose debris that had been blown away and has been picked up now. We had a little more damage on one of our park buildings. Overall it could’ve been much, much worse for public buildings.”        

Palmer points out that since Greene County has been designated as part of the governor’s disaster proclamation, that allows not only residents, but public entities – like the City – to apply for additional funding. It has been estimated that the City has about $1 million in clean up expenses and Palmer talks about how the City is addressing it.

“It’s really beyond the scope of what city crews could do. We’ve had to hire some private contractors to come in, which they’ll be picking up along the curbside. So to address that cost, this will help greatly to have this proclamation.”    

Public Works Director Dave Morlan tells Raccoon Valley Radio he is anticipating at least three months before the City is completely cleaned up.