Sulligent Has Eye on Rebuilding

SULLIGENT, Ala. (WCBI) — Alabama fire inspectors haven’t  finalized the cause of a Saturday night fire that destroyed or damaged several historic buildings on Front Street in downtown Sulligent, Ala.

But city leaders already are looking for ways to help owners rebuild to make the area even better. Mayor Scott Bowman says all the buildings were insured and locally owned. He says that will help the community move forward more quickly.

“Then we’ve got several of the businesses that were affected and they are working on clean up and just trying to get a plan together for rebuilding to see what they can do from there. We will get a plan together to try to do the best we can to ease everybody’s pain to come together as a community to rebuild things,” Bowman said.

“One of the property owner is retired so I’m not sure that at this stage in his life he will want to rebuild,” Bowman added. “If that is the case, we want to be able to help him put the property on the market and get in a good owner. These are an important part of our community and we want to make it even better.”

Fire investigators were back on the scene Tuesday trying to determine whether lightning started the fire that took firefighters from 11 communities about six hours to control Saturday night and Sunday morning.