ST. TAMMANY PARISH, La. (WGNO) — If you’re a resident of St. Tammany Parish, picking up debris has most likely become a daily task, but now you only have a few more days to get it done.
Parish officials said as of now, cleaning crews are making their final passes on April 29 everywhere except for Slidell, which has until April 30.
“That’s to take all of the storm related debris up and get it curb side and get it to landfills and get it removed from our community and get state reimbursement dollars for the cost of doing that,” Slidell Mayor Greg Cromer said.
These cleanup crews in Slidell say that they have been working almost non-stop for nearly two weeks, trying to get as much of the tornado debris picked up before the deadline hits.
They say getting the streets cleaned is not only important for the beauty of the city but the functionality of it as well.
“We’ve been working daylight to dark for ten days, so it’s been really hard. It’ll back up the drainages too. Lots of floods and a lot of rain and everything,” clean-up crewman Thomas Baker said.
For some of the residents, getting the debris to the curb has been an absolute hassle.
Thankfully, there have been several of groups in the neighborhood looking out for them, making sure everyone gets the help they need.
“Operation blessing came out. They took out some of them and they didn’t take it all out, but they cut it up pretty much and dragged most of it to the street, but then my neighbors church came and they helped take care of the rest of it,” Slidell resident Dawn Holmes said.
They are still worried that there just won’t be enough time to get what’s left off of the street.
“We still have more. It’s smaller, but it’s still gonna fill up the ditches again side of the street and we’re gonna need more time to put them out and have them picked up. It’s just not enough time,” Holmes said.
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