Out on Pond River, along the Hopkins County line, a barge was clearing debris in late June. An excavator arm reached for limbs and logs, pulling them from the banks and waters and placing them on the barge’s platform to be moved to a designated spot for burning. A crew of four men were working to clear storm debris in order to abate flooding and provide access to the waterways once choked by remnants of the December 2021 tornado.
On the morning of June 20, the team had cleared more than 10,000 feet with an additional 25,000 to go. They are employed by Double D Disaster Relief of Bethany, Missouri, and do this type of work around the southeast. The company was hired to clear interior projects after the tornado, and returned to clear waterways this spring.
District 5 Magistrate Andrew Bullock has been working closely with the team, and coordinating with the National Resource Conservation Service in Madisonville, who oversee the grant funding which covers the cost of the project. The agency is a branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Bullock said state and NRCS grants have made the project possible at no cost to county taxpayers. The county has also been able to purchase a pair of excavators with tornado-relief funds, including an amphibious excavator. Similar to a standard tracked excavator, with a rotating cab and boom/stick/bucket assembly for digging and moving material, an amphibious excavator includes pontoons and a buoyancy tank which allows it to operate in up to six feet of water.
The amphibious excavator is currently being prepared for delivery, Bullock said.
Using tornado relief funds to purchase these two pieces of equipment will allow the county to do further tornado clean-up themselves, using county road department staff. This will potentially save the county money, and provide them with powerful equipment which can be used anywhere there is a need, throughout the county, Bullock said.
As the crew works along the county line, interest in continuing the project into Hopkins County has taken root. In order to keep the waterway cleared, it is best to do debris removal along the entire waterway, said Ernie Erwin, who is one of the Double D crew, and gave us a boat tour to see the work being done.
John Davis, senior project manager with Horner Services LLC, is heading up the wetland rehabilitation project. Davis estimated approximately 30-50,000 yards of debris has been pulled from Pond River at the time of our June 20 conversation. He said when they started the project, you could not navigate more than 100 feet down the river, due to the debris.
Horner Services LLC works with Double D Disaster Relief on projects around the country, and are ideally suited to the work on Pond River, Davis said. As the Double D crew keeps clearing debris along Pond River, access to the river and it’s habitat are being restored.
