Sunday, August 31, 2003
A few declined the reimbursement, giving their checks back to the borough.
& lt;a href=mailto:gwin@vindy.com & gt;By HAROLD GWIN & lt;/a & gt;
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
CLARK, Pa. -- The borough got a $100,000 state grant to help pay for cleanup and repair work after a Nov. 10 tornado, but it's given away more than half the money.
Nearly $60,000 has been sent to the 16 municipalities, seven police departments, four ambulance services, six volunteer fire companies and four private contractors who came to Clark's assistance in its time of need.
The rest will be used to pay for road, culvert and ditch repairs in the borough, an audit of the grant funds and an emergency generator system that can be hooked up to the borough's siren warning so it will work even if there is a power outage.
That was a problem Nov. 10.
The tornado came so quickly that it knocked down power lines before the warning siren could be sounded, said Mayor Douglas Bradley.
The tornado killed Charles E. Templeton, 81, of Milton Street, when it destroyed his house, and it injured 18 others in Clark and neighboring South Pymatuning Township.
A dozen homes in the two municipalities were destroyed and a dozen others severely damaged. About 100 homes had light to moderate damage.
Bradley said those who came to Clark's aid were asked to provide the borough with a copy of their costs for equipment and manpower and that was used in the application seeking state aid.
Who got paid
The borough promised in that application that it would try to reimburse those who came to help.
Clark asked for $140,00 but got $100,000, not enough to cover every expense but enough to repay many of those who helped. Individual volunteers who just showed up to clean up debris or remove trees weren't asked to submit costs and won't get any money.
Nor will utility companies who had to replace service lines or other equipment.
One problem is that each municipality had a different rate for the same type of equipment, so Clark used standard equipment rental rates used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency so everyone would get an equal reimbursement, Bradley said.
Everyone was reimbursed at their own rates for the man-hours they contributed, he said.
"Everyone was very, very pleased to get what we were paying them. No one expected to get anything. I got some very nice thank-yous," he said.
Three of the recipients handed their checks back to him, saying they provided help out of kindness for their neighbors and didn't want reimbursed, Bradley said, identifying them as M & amp;R Power Equipment of Hermitage, Lackawannock Township and Coolspring Township.
Bradley said he would like to see Mercer County create a disaster coffer for this type of need in the future. It would be a pool of funds to help municipalities recover from storms or other disasters, he said.