Lakeland Mayor says community members helping to clean debris and provide shelter. Dr. Benjamin Bailon says his neighbors are helping to clean up fallen trees in his yard.
LAKELAND, GA --
The Red Cross, Lakeland city workers and Georgia Power were seen buzzing around the tornado damaged city on Monday.
“I’ve never seen any tornado damage like that around here. We’ve never had a tornado in Lakeland before,” says Mayor Bill Darsey.
Darsey says 17 homes were damaged in Lakeland during the confirmed EF-3 tornado. The tornado hit around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, according to residents; clean up began at 4 p.m. that afternoon and continued two days later.
Lakeland-Lanier EMA Director John Pruitt says city workers are moving tree limbs to a landfill where they hope to burn them. He says waste management in Pearson, Veolia and Valdosta are donating containers for other debris, such as metal, and discarding the material free of charge.
“A lot of state workers coming in cleaning up the highways, a lot of volunteers, our city workers are out cleaning up the limbs,” says Darsey. “Moody Air Force Base all came and they cleared out around Banks Lake. They had humvees and they could drive through it all. They were sawing and clearing the roads out there.”
He says the largest efforts in the recovery come from another group: the Lakeland community.
“A lot of the people on top of people's houses putting tarps on the houses trying to help them. It was a real big volunteer effort,” says Darsey.
Dr. Benjamin Bailon, a Lakeland resident whose home and yard were damaged, says his neighbor helped clear trees that landed on his house and blocked his driveway.
“He come out, Municipal Judge J.J. Strickland, pull out his tractor, pull out all the trees and get guys to cut the branches so I can get out,” says Bailon.
Bailon says everyone in his neighborhood is helping each other out.
“He has no water, I don't have no water, I do have extra rooms in the lake house so we alternate and go in there, I just keep the door open,” he says.
Darsey says there was a shelter opened by the city but he says those without a house found shelter through family members and fellow citizens.
The mayor says he’s not only thankful to the community for pulling together, he says he’s also thankful no on in the community was hurt or killed.
“No one got hurt. That’s what we're so thankful about. You can replace property but you can't replace lives,” he says.
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