Sanitation workers are catching up on missed trash due to winter weather

WEST POINT, Miss. (WCBI)- The ice storm, last week, came with more problems than anticipated. Higher electric bills, no power, and no garbage pick up. The trash piled-up at some homes for over a week and some people still have overflowing garbage cans.

Trash day is a weekly fresh start; people throw out the old, the unused, and the unneeded items in your house. Trash trucks weren’t able to pick up loads last week, so this week workers have been busy trying to catch up.

The people that help clean our community are back in full swing after not being able to run their normal routes to pick up trash last week.

“It about shut us down; so basically all we could do last week was put sand on bridges put sand on curbs and stuff like that,” said Public Works Director of West Point Joey Wright.

After a week of backed-up trash, Wright said his staff exceeded their normal drop-off.

“Monday it was a lot of garbage we usually go to the land field once and I think each truck went 3 times,” said Wright.

Wright also had to tweak their schedule to catch up to all of the trash that was missed.

“We started Monday picking up garbage we did Wednesday’s route on Monday and Thursday’s route on Tuesday we’re back on a normal schedule now,” said Wright.

Some people were upset to have their trash piled up while others were understanding of the weather.

“They didn’t bother us that bad I think they kind of understood what was going on and they knew we were going to get it picked up just give us time,” said Wright.

Sanitary workers are working hard to satisfy the community and tidy the streets up.

“We’ve been a little busy you know we stayed until 4 o’clock yesterday trying to you know get the town clean. We still have a lot to go because we still have brushes and stuff to pick up but we’re getting to it,” said sanitation worker Stedman Carothers.

Wright is proud of his team and appreciates them for going above and beyond for their town.

“I got a group of good people here; I can call them and they come if it’s possible,” said Wright.

Wright says they are all caught up and on their regular schedule and if another storm occurs they are prepared.