Adair and Guthrie County Emergency Management Coordinator Jeremy Cooper brought information to the Greenfield City Council and Adair County Board of Supervisors at meetings last Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, respectively.
The coordinator said that because of multiple agencies and companies working together, cleanup of all the debris left in the path of the tornado was going well.
In general, Cooper told the council and supervisors to document as many of the expenses they’ve had from the disaster as possible. Some day, a large portion of those funds could be reimbursed by FEMA.
The city council moved to waive building permit fees for those rebuilding in the community because of the tornado. A separate variance fee was not waived due to the work that goes into that happening.
Driving money back into the economy is another goal of Cooper’s.
“It’s gonna hurt for a little while. Right now, we’re looking at 157 homes that are destroyed, and we may be up to around 200 when it’s all said and done,” he said. “That’s a huge hit on this community.”
Recovery support functions were finalized early May by EMA. They’re already going to be exercised because of this tornado. In the context of this disaster, Cooper said these functions will be aimed at making Greenfield “bigger and better” than it was before the tornado hit.
The community and surrounding areas are no longer in a response mode but a recovery mode, Cooper said.
“That’s the way verybody needs to feel,” Cooper said. “Yeah, we’re still responding to stuff, but we’re working on a way we can build up. We’ll get there. It’s going to be a long road, but things are moving forward.”
One way things have moved forward is the removal of debris from town. That has largely been the work of Adair County Secondary Roads, which officially entered into a contract with the city in a special supervisors meeting Friday for that work. Another contractor will work on getting the debris out of the county entirely.
“You go across town and see the work Secondary Roads has done already and that’s promising in and of itself,” Cooper said. “I hope that gives the citizens hope and that drives them to stay here.”
Cooper said the Adair County Fair and RAGBRAI are still two goals he’d like to target i nthe recovery process.
“The county fair, that’s big for the economy here and the citizens,” he said. “Potentially RAGBRAI, I would still like to think we can accomplish that event. I think it would be huge and could potentially drive some fundraising efforts for this community as well.”