Volunteer efforts and donated manpower going a long way in getting Huntingburg cleaned up

City workers manned phones all night, the Red Cross opened a shelter and food line, and volunteers reported to help; all came together to put Huntingburg’s south side back together.

“We should have power back up today.” Mayor Marvin Belcher said. “The city’s (Huntingburg) workers are going above and beyond to get this area back together. There is no ‘what do we do now?’, they just move to the next job and keep going.”

Volunteers are piling debris up and those with trucks are then collecting it and taking it to the recycling center near the city park where two large dumpsters are available.

Now they need volunteers to show up with rakes to collect the many sticks, branches, and smaller materials into piles.

Huntingburg is also getting help from Jasper and Ferdinand; both have sent city employees over to help with the infrastructure repair and clean up. The highway department has also called to help and has donations.

Tina Dearing with the Huntingburg Red Cross opened the Red Cross building on Wednesday night when the storm was projected to hit Huntingburg. “It was the first time we had opened it up as a shelter and 36 people showed up. We played games, watched TV, and listened to the radio until the power went out.”

Most of the people that came that night were from the north side of town and they returned home later that night. Tina didn’t find out about the damages to her own house on First Street until around 2 a.m.

“I don’t even know how to explain that.” She points at a perfect circular dent in a steel door at her house. She is also finding it hard to explain how her garage door crumpled inward with no apparent impact marks. It looks like a giant hand just squeezed the door together.

Now she has established a temporary shelter at St. Mary’s Catholic Church with a kitchen preparing hot meals. Mainly the volunteers for the Red Cross have been providing drinks and snacks as well as meals for all of the volunteers and city employees, but if anyone needs assistance or a place to stay, cots and a warm meal are available.

The Dubois County Community Meal has even shown up to provide some hot barbecued turkey.

Mayor Belcher has a mobile home sitting on his back deck, but he is out directing crews and cleaning the streets with the rest of the city workers while tarps cover his own house.

That is the picture today in Huntingburg. The citizens of the city, the neighbors from around the county, the volunteers, and all of the employees working diligently to clean up this EF-2 mess. Chainsaws accented with the urgent bleating of a backing dumptruck, people shake there head, smile that the sun is shining, cry a bit, but continue to work.

It could have been worse.

This latest disaster will be tied in with the State’s disaster declaration a few days ago and could be one step closer to the area being declared a federal emergency.