Calhoun County Facing Potential Costly Cleanup Issues After Recent Tornado

CALHOUN COUNTY, MISS. (WCBI) – Calhoun County is facing some potentially costly issues relating to last week’s tornado. While the cleanup is underway, the county isn’t sure how much relief will be coming from the state or federal government.

Calhoun County EMA Director Randy Skinner says 93 residential or commercial structures were damaged when the tornado the evening of May the second.

“Affected, minor, major or destroyed, categories,” Skinner said.

A team from MEMA made a second visit to Calhoun City Tuesday morning. Skinner says to qualify for state disaster relief, a county only has to have 65 thousand dollars in damage. But the threshold is much higher at the federal level.

“When I meet my threshold and the other counties meet their threshold, we have to meet a total of four and a half million dollars befor

the state of Mississippi becomes declared, or before the governor can petition the federal government for assistance,” Skinner said.

The county also faces another potentially costly issue and it has to do with disposing of the debris. Because of environmental regulations, a lot of the debris cannot be taken to the nearest landfill, it has to be transported to Pontotoc County.

“The city can’t just take the debris and go put it in a clearing somewhere to get rid of it, you have to carry it to an approved pit or recycling place somewhere in the state, the majority of our debris is going to be green debris, tree or vegetative debris, we had a landfill in Bruce, but there are some permitting issues we’re working through there and we couldn’t do it at this time,” he said.

Skinner says without a federal disaster declaration, it is likely the county will have to pay the entire cost for debris removal. And when it comes to possible assistance from MEMA for residents with tornado damage to their homes or personal property, Skinner encourages patience, as the paperwork and the process continues.

The tornado hit an area with a large number of low-income homes and Skinner says many of those affected did not have insurance. He says there are some disaster relief groups that are helping out.