Community concerns with Shannon
Our next question comes from Macenna True in Dresden. Macenna asked, “In light of the Dec 10 disaster, and the many severe weather threats that this county has feared since, why has each city not come up with a make-shift community safe room- be it city hall, a recreation center or what have you? People who live in mobile or manufactured homes – or still living in campers since the loss of their home- need a place to get to quickly that offers even a little more safety. To add further, why doesn’t Dresden prioritize once again getting tornado sirens before they worry about other things? Is that not something the donations could have covered? What’s the cost? Citizens may be willing to donate now if we KNEW our donations would complete that project for the safety of our community.”
Macenna, I reached out to community leaders and while some have a shelter for citizens to go to, others either do not, or did not get back to me. The city of Martin has the Gateway Center open as a community saferoom in the event of bad storms and they also have tornado sirens. Dresden has the Weakley County Courthouse open. Greenfield does not have a shelter or safe room, but they do have sirens. Gleason and Sharon did not get back to when I reached out. I do know that a lot of cities usually have local churches open as shelters and community members should reach out to their leaders and churches for more information on that.
The city of Dresden will have a safe room in the new Municipal Complex; however, it is my understanding that the room will be for staff and not for the community. Recently, the city of Dresden voted to go with the floating wetlands for their CDBG application instead of tornado sirens, but this was due to advice that typically and application for floating wetlands is more likely to get approved than sirens are. I reached out to Mayor Mark Maddox regarding donations being used to purchase tornado sirens but have not yet received a response.
Members of the community concerned about tornado sirens and community shelters should bring these issues up at their local cities board meetings. The next meeting for Dresden’s city board will be Monday, May 8 at the Civic Center.
We hope to be able to answer a question every week from a member of the community. Just send us your questions by Monday every week. Email questions to smerrell1@murraystate.edu, text questions to 731-819-4497, stop by the office, give us a call at 731-587-3144 and ask for Shannon or message us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. We look forward to serving the community better by answering the concerns you may have surrounding any issues in Weakley County.
