Owensboro Cleanup

Owensboro and Daviess county are still under a local state of emergency tonight --as is the state of Kentucky. The wind damage is extensive and widespread. "Its all over town every yard looks like our yard, its the way all of Owensboro looks." Tina Greenwell and her family count themselves lucky that none of the three trees that fell in their neighborhood damaged their home. Using their own resources, theyve managed to clear out much of the debris. But across town Utility companies are laboring to put up new infrastructure after the storm left telephone poles unsalvagable. Having to put up all new lines is whats taking so long to get back the 12 thousand plus homes electricity. Local companies are making headway but theres so much to do, director of emergency management Richard Payne says the county had to make a formal declaration that this is a disaster area. "Its just to let people know government is doing what they can to keep our infrastructure in place, we cant ask the state for assistance without a formal declaration, thats one thing we have to do right off the bat, if we feel its going to be above and beyond our control and we need outside resources we have to declare." Normally, the city and county had been able to count on help from Evansville and Henderson, but those areas have their own problems to deal with...The next option would be to get help from bigger cities but *their* available crews have gone to help in Texas. Greenwell says theres only one thing to do. " Everybody has to pitch in, if you see somebody that needs help, pitch in, I know OMU and all those guys are working as hard as they can work but if you can help thats the best thing you can do." Utility companies are telling us it could be another day or so before the city has all its lights on.