Crews work to clear debris off roads

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)- Saturday’s tornado turned many Columbus streets into obstacle courses.

Trees and debris stood in the way of rescuers and city crews from doing their job.

For the past 48 hours crews have been hard at work trying to clean up the city of Columbus.

They have worked in teams to clear debris and get the city back up and running.

“We have the city of Columbus light and water department trying to get those streets open again due to power and power lines that being down we are trying to make sure that these streets are passable for our citizens,” said Columbus Public Works director Casey Bush.

“I understand its a burden on everybody, and we’re trying to clean it up as fast as we can, but we’ve been out here ever since Saturday night. As soon as the storm hit he had us out here. He had us in different teams he’s split all of us up, and we are out here doing the best we can for the community,” said truck driver Rhonda Bailey.

And that hard work is paying off.

Many of the streets hit by the tornado are clear.

“It’s going pretty great we’re out here with got everything basically we do pretty much everything so we’re out here doing everything that we can to clean up just as quickly as we can,” said Bailey.

Bush said his crews will continue to clean up debris on city property but won’t be able to help people with their homes.

“The city it is not liable we can’t come onto private property to help I would love to come onto your property and help that just me, but the city is not liable to do that,” said Bush.

But others are stepping in to do what the city can’t.

“United Way or these other special agencies that are coming in that you can call and get numbers too, and they will send out volunteers to help you and assist you in all of this, and that will get to the debris to the road where we can come in and this debris move for you,” said Bush.

Bush tells us the landfill will have extended hours as debris continues to be cleaned up. It will be open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.