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'It's not coming back'
The debris removal started Aug. 19 on the west side of Picher, where the tornado struck first. The cleanup in that part of the town is nearing completion, said Joel Thompson, one of the city’s last remaining employees. Thompson’s home on the outskirts of Picher was among those destroyed.
“It took so long to get the cleanup going because there were so many agencies involved,” Thompson said. “But they were moving fast now. It won’t be long before it’s all gone.”
Thompson said he expects the cleanup to be completed in about three weeks and at a cost that is considerably less than officials first thought. The initial estimate of the cleanup was $4 million, based on 80,000 cubic yards of debris. The actual amount of debris could be closer to 25,000 cubic yards, he said.
The contractor is Young’s General Construction, Poplar Bluff, Mo. The company is being paid $77.99 per ton to remove vegetation and $87.99 per ton to remove construction debris. Each trailer load is weighed.
Picher City Clerk Carolyn Elmore said property owners must give the contractor permission to remove debris from their property. She said 13 property owners “still want access to the site to make sure they have not missed something under the rubble.”
“We pick up nothing of value, and the contractor picks up nothing. It all goes to the landfill,” Thompson said.
About the emergency-management people who have been working in Picher, Elmore said: “They have helped us so much. We could not have asked for better people. They are sympathetic to what has happened here. They have never seen a place where there are no plans to rebuild.”
Moving on
Of the roughly 700 structures in Picher, only 150 were to be moved to a new subdivision that is being constructed near Quapaw. The tornado that struck Picher on May 10 destroyed about 20 of the houses that were to be moved, said Johnny Seeling, owner of Twin Bridges Co., the company that is moving the structures.
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