Dresden, Tenn.–Dresden City Hall is now operating at the Harmon and Lucille McWherter Civic Center also known as the Dresden Senior Citizen Center. Personnel are ready to accept all types of payments due the city at the new location. Dresden’s City Hall (and the Fire Department) were destroyed in Friday night’s tornadoes.
Dresden Mayor Jeff Washburn said volunteers continue to cut and remove downed trees and limbs to the edge of the roadway and then load them into trucks to be hauled to the City of Dresden sand pit. An estimated 250 truck loads of brush were hauled to the two burn sites for disposal on Wednesday. Once all tree debris is hauled away, the volunteers will then begin to concentrate on construction debris. After all construction debris is removed, the clean-up effort will then shift to demolishing homesand businesses that cannot be feasibly rebuilt.
The Dresden Elks Lodge will continue providing hot meals three times a day through Saturday.
The Americam Red Cross is tentatively scheduled to begin feeding meals to volunteers and displaced persons next week.
The donation center remains open at 1064 Evergreen Extended in Dresden. The Warming Center likewise remains open with cots and showers available. The Center is located at 8230 Highway 22 at the Adult Learning Center.
WCMES continues to expand electrical service areas inside Dresden and the affected areas of the county. Electrical power was added to the west side of the courtsquare and on South Cedar in Dresden and parts beyond on Wednesday.
New traffic control lights have been installed at the Highways 22 and 89 intersection. The existing traffic lights were destroyed by the tornado.
Photo: Dresden City Mayor Jeff Washburn and Weakley County Mayor Jake Bynum as joint incident command survey the disaster response today in the command center Wednesday. (City of Dresden photo).