Date: May 17, 2007 
Contact: Gail Williams, Assistant to the Director, Public Works
: GWilliams@wichita.gov
: (316) 268-4497

The City of Wichita’s Public Works Department is sending 62 men and heavy equipment including dump trucks and other earth-moving equipment to Greensburg to assist in the clean up effort from the May 4 tornado.
The group will leave the Central Maintenance Facility at 1801 S. McLean at 9 AM tomorrow, Friday, May 18 and stay for one week to assist in the clean up efforts. City officials will be there to give a send off to City of Wichita employees that will be involved in debris removal and pick up.
“The City of Wichita wants to give as much assistance as possible to our friends in Greensburg,” said Public Works Director Chris Carrier. “Our guys volunteered to go, they weren’t forced to do it. I am proud of these employees for wanting to go over there and work hard long hours – 12-hour days for 7 days. They will live in tents for a week but this is something that they all really wanted to do,” Carrier said. 
The City of Wichita crew will be the one of the biggest contingency of people outside of the citizens of Greensburg on site to help. City employees will be paid for this hard labor. FEMA will reimburse the City for these expenses associated with the clean up. Public Works has over 300 employees.
The City of Wichita Public Works department has experience in disaster clean up. They assisted in clean up efforts for the 1999 F4 tornado that cut a path a half-mile wide through Haysville and South Wichita. Also, after the beginning of 2005, a tremendous ice storm struck the entire city of Wichita. City staff worked day and night for weeks. In less than three months, 46-thousand tons of debris was cut, picked up and disposed of.