County begins to bounce back from tornado damages

Mar. 7--Wilson County is on the road to recovery after a tornado swept through the area on Tuesday morning, with a majority of power lines and road closures no longer impacting citizens.

The death toll in the county has also held at three individuals, despite initial reports of a fourth victim found in Lebanon on Tuesday evening.

"We do not have a reported fatality in the city," Lebanon Police Department Sgt. P.J. Hardy said. "We had taken a citizen out of their home and were told he had died later on, but that person has since been resuscitated and is alive."

Wilson County Mayor Randall Hutto said the community as a whole has done well in moving forward after the damage.

"I think overall when you look around there's been a great response," he said. "People have reached out in many different facets. Those groups consist of volunteers, churches, city leaders and emergency personnel, and the county organizations have also played a big part. With all of those people working together we've done really well."

In the days immediately following the storm, the primary focus was on repairing power lines and clearing roadways.

A majority of the county's remaining road closures are in Mt. Juliet, but Mt. Juliet Police Department Capt. Tyler Chandler expects to see a shift in momentum over the weekend.

"We're hoping for some relief with Golden Bear Gateway at the end of the day on Friday," he said. "A lot of our roadways are stabilizing right now and it's likely if it continues that way we'll be able to scale back our operations on Sunday."

Chandler said that means a more focused operation based out of the department's command office, with less need for community members who have spent the week cleaning up damages.

"Our volunteers have been doing a great job with cleanup," he said, noting the number of people who turned up on Friday. "We have around 1,000 people out there right now, and another wave coming later in the afternoon."

Lebanon is also on track to have all city-owned roadways open over the weekend, with only one still closed at press time.

"Right now the only roadway closed in the city is Leeville Pike between Hartmann Drive and Highway 109, so crews can put power lines up and get power back to people in that area," Hardy said. "We're hoping that will be finished by the end of the day on Friday. Interstate 40 is being controlled by the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and they may have intermittent closures to run power lines across."

TDOT District 3 Community Relations Officer Kathryn Schulte said Middle Tennessee Electric Company has scheduled rolling roadblocks on Interstate 40 off Highway 109 from approximately 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The co-op also expects to have a majority of power outages restored in the coming days.

"As of Friday morning, we have about 700 members still without power," Larry Rose, a communications and marketing consultant for Middle Tennessee Electric, said. "Most of them are located along Leeville Pike because the tornado went down that road and tore down every power line. Our hope is that we're able to restore power to that area today."

Rose said there are still scattered outages in the county's smaller neighborhoods, and that issues like debris could prevent some homes from receiving immediate assistance.

"There will be a few that have some sort of extenuating circumstance, but we've come a long way in addressing the problem," he said. "We originally had about 40,000 members with their power out and we're under 1,000 now."

As roads and power lines begin running again, the county can shift its focus to relief efforts. President Donald Trump's administration authorized the release of FEMA funds to areas affected by the tornado on Thursday, including Wilson County.

That means individuals and local governments can apply for relief through FEMA's Individual Assistance, Public Assistance or Hazard Mitigation programs. Those interested in doing so can visit www.disasterassistance.gov or call 1-800-621-3362.

"There's also a mobile FEMA app you can download on your phone, and coming to the mall area we will have a local FEMA office," Hutto said, noting that the county hopes to have that in place at the Lebanon Outlet Mall by Monday. "We used this location because most of the damage is located around the Interstate 40 corridor."

The county also plans to have additional services for victims to the mall's parking lot.

"TDOT is bringing out a trailer where people who lost their driver's licenses or photo IDs can have them reprinted," Hutto said. "Another one provided by the Department of Workforce Development will offer internet access, so people can charge their phones, file insurance claims or file for unemployment benefits."

Both of those trailers are expected to arrive the same day as the FEMA office, which will be located inside the building.

"I think the process of recovery is a long one and it's not something that will happen overnight," Hutto said. "Getting back to normal in this case really means getting back to a new normal ... nothing is really the same."

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