CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. (CLARKSVILLENOW) Meeting in special session Thursday, October 31, the Clarksville City Council voted unanimously to formally declare a state of emergency for the city and to continue severe weather recovery efforts after storms tore through the area last Saturday.
Mayor Joe Pitts explained why the city was taking these steps. “This is merely a city measure to give us an opportunity to be able to make emergency purchases and to exceed our budget in certain areas to allow us to clean up the debris and help our citizens recover.”
The state of emergency says that the clean up and the restoration process is slow moving, not only because of the mass quantity of damage but also the wide-spread effects of the sever weather on Saturday. October 26, which caused considerable damage throughout the entire city.
Clarksville Department of Electricity General Manager, Brian Taylor, spoke to the council and said this was the worst disaster the electric system has ever experienced and even surpasses the damage from the 1999 tornado and 1994 ice storm.
Saturday’s storms scattered debris across roadways, destroyed buildings and left over 32,ooo residents without electricity. As of Tuesday, 4,311 people remained without power.
Several local organizations have stepped up to offer relief to those still effected by outages as CDE and CEMC continue working to restore power. A list of such resources can be found here.