Mississippi City Hit by April Tornado Awaiting Repayment for $1.45M Cleanup Costs

A southwest Mississippi city has paid $1.45 million to clean up from an April 23 tornado and now awaits reimbursement from federal and state disaster agency.

The Enterprise-Journal reports McComb made its final payment to a debris removal contractor and a monitoring company last week.

That’s more than twice the $600,000 McComb paid to clean up from a May 2019 tornado that hit the same parts of town.

The city board borrowed $1.5 million from its capital improvement fund to pay for the cleanup and must repay that money by Sept. 30.

The federal government is supposed to get 75% of the cost back from the federal government and 12.5% back from the state, leaving it to pay about $180,000.

Public Works Director Alice Barnes says she has weekly conference calls with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s program manager.

“We just need to get our paperwork in, and then they will give us our schedule,”?Barnes said when asked if the city has a timeline for reimbursement.