By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
The Great Bend City Council received several updates from department heads on the storm damage and how the city is moving forward at Monday’s meeting.
As of 5 p.m. Monday, Wheatland Electric informed city administration that approximately 1,500 customers were still without electricity following Sunday evening's storm that included strong winds and large hail.
Great Bend Fire Chief Brent Smith said
the initial report from emergency management was the storm included straight-line
winds, ruling out a tornado. Despite the storm not classified as a tornado,
many citizens were left wondering why the tornado sirens did not sound. Smith
said Barton County Dispatch attempted to activate the sirens 10 times without
any success.
"Through some testing today, we identified some weaknesses," said Smith. "The system had some fail-safes that failed. They're working through their side of that. As part of that, we're going to tie that into Fire Station 2's generator so there is a backup to their backup."
Public Works Director Jason Cauley said his department helped clear the main thoroughfares, or most used streets, of branches and debris. One Public Works Department crew staffed the compost site with a constant line of vehicles backed up to the Railroad Avenue entrance at times.
Those residents unable to remove their
branches to the compost site, can stack them up near the curb as the city will
conduct a city-wide pickup on Monday, July 24.
"Bring everything out to the back of the curb, not in the street and not in the sidewalk," said Cauley. "We are going to go through all neighborhoods once. We don't want to go back more than once due to the amount of manpower that takes to go back."
The Front Door, or utilities office on 10th Street, was closed
Monday, but will be operational again Tuesday morning.