WESSON – Town officials reported good progress on debris cleanupfollowing Hurricane Katrina and are working toward a final sweep ofthe town.

Mayor Alton Shaw said the town reached an agreement withcontractor Brad Turner for debris removal. Shaw said town officialswere eager to move forward with cleanup and now hope to bereimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for theestimated $25,000 cost of the work done.

“We’re going to do our best,” Shaw said.

Shaw said 690 truckloads of debris have been collected duringthe project, which has gone on about two and a half weeks. To date,he said, approximately 9,000 cubic yards of debris have beenremoved, enough to cover an entire football field about five footdeep.

“We have gotten just about all of it up in town,” said MarkBrown, public works director.

In comparison, Brookhaven Mayor Bob Massengill said city crewshad picked up approximately 10,000 cubic yards of debris. The U.S.Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the removal of other debris,which the mayor estimated would be at least 100,000 cubicyards.

Shaw said Wesson officials were still working on a few otheraspects of debris cleanup.

“We’ve still got some stump issues,” he said.

Brown said there had been no problems with debris cleanup afterKatrina. He said some more debris had resulted from HurricaneRita.

“Everybody’s starting to go back into their yards after thislast storm,” Brown said.

Brown credited the smooth operation in part to Alderman BobbyBritt’s donation of land used as decomposition site for the debris.He said the close proximity of the site allowed work to move morequickly.

“We had some other sites where we could dump at, but they werefarther away,” Brown said.

Shaw encouraged anyone still needing assistance with debriscleanup to call City Hall at (601) 643-5221. Brown asked residentsto be patient as cleanup continues.

“Just because we pass you up on the first time doesn’t meanwe’ll pass you the second time,” Brown said.