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Road workers from Webster County were among the hundreds of helpers who converged on the devastated community of Greenfield last week to help clear away the wreckage left by a deadly tornado.
They spent two days hauling away fallen trees.
Webster County Engineer Jamie Johll said the Greenfield community "needed some help and we were in a position where we could provide some help."
On Thursday, about 10 Webster County Road Department workers equipped with five dump trucks, an excavator, a backhoe and a skid loader went to Greenfield. A smaller crew went Friday.
Johll said seeing the devastation caused by the twister was a "shock to your system."
"There is a whole area of town just completely flattened," he said. "There is nothing over 12-inches high standing."
In the immediate aftermath of the tornado, local crews used motor graders to clear paths through the debris-clogged streets so that emergency vehicles could get through. Everything pushed aside by those graders was still on the ground alongside the streets. The Webster County crews helped to get that debris picked up and hauled away.
A lot of the mess consisted of fallen trees and big tree branches, according to Johll. He said the excavator the Webster County crew took to Greenfield had an attachment that enabled it to grasp trees and branches. It was used to pick up trees and put them into the dump trucks, which then hauled them to a pile at a fairgrounds near Greenfield.
All of the Webster County road workers who went to Greenfield volunteered for that assignment. They were paid by Webster County.
The local crews will not be needed in Greenfield in the near future.
"I called and asked if they needed any more help this week and they said they had a pretty good handle on things," Johll said.