tornado

Southbury Voters to Decide on Funding to Clean Up Storm Damage

It's been two months since tornados swept across parts of Connecticut, damaging homes and tearing down trees. As the cleanup continues, Southbury town officials hope for more money to help the process. 

The Southbury Board of Selectmen wants approval for another $1.7 million outside of the current budget and a vote is scheduled for Thursday night during a town meeting at town hall at 7 p.m. 

First Selectman Jeff Manville said he hopes FEMA will cover 75 percent of the cost and the application process to secure funding is underway, however, the town must move forward without federal help for now. 

“Any help that we can get, any extra help that we can get would be great,” said David Goewey, who lives in New York, but owns a property on Sanford Road. 

While he is thankful his house wasn't damaged, the yard was another story. 

“The backyard still needs to be cleaned up. We have gotten various estimates on that and that seems to be taking a little while. Two trees back there were completely like just shredded and they are all in the backyard," said Goewey. "It costs a fair amount of money." 

Money the town said it needs more of for storm debris cleanup. Many people in Southbury on Thursday said an approval of an additional $1.7 million would really help. 

"I think that it would be a huge benefit for the town, I know there are a lot of people who could really use the help," said Kealy White. 

White said their house was not damaged, but many of their neighbors on Jacob Road got hit hard. The storm was so unusual it caught people by surprise, including White and her husband. 

“He was like, ‘oh yeah, I think there’s supposed to be a tornado’ and I was like, ‘OK, shouldn’t we go in the basement?’ He’s like, ‘No, I’m sure it will be fine. Have you ever heard of a tornado in Connecticut?" said White. 

Now that they have heard of tornadoes in Connecticut, people in Southbury want to get back to the way life was before the storm. 

'just to see everybody taken care of, that's really all I could ask for," said White. 

"We really need, at this point, I think a good influx of money to get this all cleaned up to get the town back to where it was before that, before May," said Goewey. 

The meeting and vote are scheduled for Thursday night at the Southbury Town Hall at 7 p.m. If the money is approved, the board of selectmen will move forward on picking a contractor. 

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