SLIDELL, La. — Relief efforts are well underway in St Tammany parish over a week after severe weather barreled through the area. Slidell Mayor Greg Cromer said debris pickup officially started Thursday.
The damage was so extensive, Mayor Cromer believed soon after the severe weather settled, that there had to be more than only one tornado.
"I said, 'Clint, there's, there's got to be multiple storms here, maybe at least two, maybe three tornadoes'. And just what we suspected," he said. "It just seemed like there were two different storms in the debris."
And he was right.
The National Weather Service has now announced there were eight confirmed tornadoes between Slidell and Kiln, Mississippi. One of those newly confirmed tornadoes was an EF-1 and caused tree damage near Military Road and Crawford Landing Road.
That tornado uprooted a tree that blocked off the entrance of Honey Island Swamp Tours. Another tree hit the building's roof. Honey Island Swamp Tours tells us there's some slight damage to the building.
Thankfully, they were able to get back up and running fairly quickly after the storm, but Mayor Cromer says unfortunately it'll take much of the area longer to recover.
"I'm thinking at a minimum of six months, we're going to have relief efforts around the community and possibly longer," Cromer said.
Despite the long timeline to recovery, Mayor Cromer says the spirit of Slidell is helping to push them forward, saying just like in the past, they'll come back stronger.
"That's it, you know, 'check on her, not us, we're OK. That's the spirit of our community, you know, we look out for each other. You see neighbors in each other's yard helping move debris, you see neighbors, at the end of the evening or end of the day, on the front porch with a grill or a pot, cooking a gumbo," Cromer said.
This weekend the Red Cross will be at John Slidell Park gym to take applications for relief. Cromer says the Department of Insurance and the Attorney General's office will also be there to help with insurance as well as fraud-related issues.
Cromer added that the city will be suspending permit fees for residents who are rebuilding storm-related damage.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
Researchers looking at long-term trends say they're finding more clusters of tornadoes compared to years past.
WWL Chief Meteorologist Chris Franklin explains why in the video below:
