It took Birmingham city officials nearly four weeks to agree on a portion of a plan to remove debris from public areas in disaster-stricken Pratt City. Only days before, Gov. Robert Bentley publicly expressed his frustration with the leaders in a May 20 news conference to update Alabamians about tornado disaster relief work around the state.
Bentley said, “Birmingham needs to get to work. We expect them to get along and make some decisions and go to work and get the debris removed.”
According to The Birmingham News, Mayor William Bell and the City Council could not agree about whether private companies or the Army Corps of Engineers should clean up Pratt City. Bell and the council blamed each other for the delay.
Eventually the council reportedly hired three private companies to do the public debris removal and passed a resolution asking Bell “to negotiate” with the Corps to do the job on private properties. At press time, Bell’s plans were unknown.
While Bentley criticized Birmingham leaders’ inactivity, he praised other leaders in storm-ravaged areas who are working well together to help survivors begin the recovery process.
“In some communities, where there was once rubble, there are merely blank slabs of concrete,” Bentley said. “Some areas of the state are seeing gradual progress in the area of debris removal; some are slowly moving in that direction. To date, there has been upwards of 270,000 tons of debris removed.”
He also said his office will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Corps to begin cleaning up Alabama lakes and waterways.
“We expect this to get started very quickly,” Bentley said. “The governor’s office will lead the cleanup of the lakes and make them safe again.”
He also said more than 70,000 people mostly from Madison, Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties have applied for FEMA assistance and asked FEMA representatives to be more sensitive when denying assistance. (TAB)
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