Mayor seeks cleanup funds

Support from surrounding municipalities has been great, the mayor said.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
CLARK, Pa. -- Mayor Douglas C. Bradley wasn't home when a tornado destroyed a big chunk of this tiny western Mercer County borough Sunday.
He had driven to Virginia on a weeklong deer hunting trip that was officially to begin Monday morning.
He said he got a call from home telling him about the storm and began packing immediately for his return, getting back to town around 2 p.m. Monday.
He wasn't prepared for what he saw.
"I was devastated," he said. "I did not expect what we had here. When I pulled in, I just couldn't believe it. What this borough took 40 years to build was gone in five minutes."
The official count of the storm shows a dozen homes destroyed, a dozen more extensively damaged and 96 more with minor to moderate damage in Clark, South Pymatuning Township, Delaware Township and Sharon.
A total of 18 people were hurt in the storm, and one, Charles E. Templeton, 81, of 22 Milton St., was killed when his home collapsed.
Bradley, a retiree from the Sears store in the Shenango Valley Mall in nearby Hermitage, lives on Nora Street, one of the two borough streets with the most devastation.
His house, however, is several blocks from where the 500-foot wide tornado passed through, and it suffered no damage.
State officials tour area
He spent most of Monday and Tuesday walking through the devastation, talking to and encouraging friends and neighbors and escorting representatives for Gov. Mark Schweiker and Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency on tours.
The tours are an effort to secure support for a federal disaster declaration Clark wants and needs to help pay the cleanup bill, he said.
No cost estimate has been determined, but Bradley says whatever it is, it's more than this town of 630 can cover on its own.
Next year's total budget is $205,000, he said, adding that Clark has $900 set aside in an unappropriated surplus budget account for unanticipated expenses. That won't cover one-tenth of the police bill, which has risen to $10,000 in three days.
Police help
Various local police departments have sent officers to beef up the Jefferson-Clark Regional Police Department, and the Mercer County sheriff's office has had deputies there from the beginning.
Sharon, in particular, has provided police help 24 hours a day since the storm, Bradley said, adding that someone has to pay for that service and for debris removal. There will be other expenses that borough officials haven't thought of, he said.
"The support from surrounding municipalities is just outstanding," he said.
"We're going to get the job done," Bradley vowed, even if no government financial help arrives.
"This community will bounce back. You can see that right now. What's been done in 48 hours is remarkable," he said, referring to residents' launching their own cleanup effort with the help of family and friends, some of whom they just met.
Coming to help
There was a two-man crew from Triumphant Return Ministries, a Christian outreach organization from Pittsburgh that heard about the need and decided to lend a hand. David Ralston, 25, and Gary Bova, 24, said they arrived Tuesday morning with tools and food and clothing for those who needed it and went to work helping clear debris.
"Our goal is to present Christ. That's what we do, and this is what he would do," Ralston said, noting that others of their group would arrive later in the week if needed.
Around 2 p.m., a crew driving three green and white trucks from Hosanna Industries of Rochester, Pa., pulled into the municipal parking lot and asked what needed to be done.
Two women walking the streets through the devastated area carrying an oversize bag filled with boxes of doughnuts said they decided Monday night they had to do something to help.
"We were praying for the people up here, and we decided we had to help," said Toni Kurelko of Sharon.
She was accompanied by Bonnie Silvis, also of Sharon, who was walking aided by a crutch.
"I just had hip replacement surgery in August," she explained, adding that she wasn't going to let that stop her from helping.
The two women agreed to share the cost of the doughnuts and then drove to Clark, handing them out to anyone who wanted one.
Disaster relief
The Salvation Army and American Red Cross disaster relief trucks seemed to be everywhere, handing out free food and drink to emergency workers and victims of the storm and to those who came to help.
The Red Cross set up a service center in the municipal building Tuesday to assess individual family needs and was already providing services to six families, a spokeswoman said at 2 p.m. Tuesday.
Not all help was right on the site.
The Sharpsville Area School District, which includes Clark, opened its high school to anyone in Clark needing to take a shower, and counseling has been arranged for school children who lost homes or were traumatized by the tornado.
County action
Mercer County commissioners officially declared the storm-damaged area of Clark to be a disaster area Tuesday, sending that declaration to both PEMA and the Federal Emergency Management Agency in hopes that it would persuade them to make a similar declaration that could lead to government aid for cleanup.
The county has also established a Clark Area Relief Fund, said Gene Brenneman, chairman of county commissioners.
Those wishing to contribute should send checks made out to the Mercer County Treasurer but with a notation that the money is to go to the relief fund, he said.
Commissioners will determine where that money will be spent, he said.