East Ridge is a community still healing from floodwaters that swept the city in September.
But on Thursday, city leaders thanked some of the individuals who helped during the floods that displaced about 500 residents.
"We were humbled to see so many hands and hearts helping," said City Manager William Whitson. "Out of the floodwaters came heroes."
The City Council presented Flood Recovery Hero Awards after a reception with food and drink for government, business, religious and charity groups that assisted. In all, nearly 100 groups or individuals were thanked.
However, there's plenty of work still undone. Some residents have not returned home, including Councilman Denny Manning, whose home was flooded. He didn't attend Thursday's council meeting.
East Ridge was also hit by massive expenses, including overtime pay and repair work. On top of that, one of the city's largest retail taxpayers, Sears Essentials, was flooded and chose not to reopen. The loss of sales tax revenue from that one business is going to be noticeable, Mr. Whitson said.
City leaders won't know the impacts of any revenue loss until January. The latest sales-tax figures from September showed the city keeping pace with last year.
"We are going to follow the revenues month by month," Mr. Whitson said. "But we are going to be looking ahead at trends and adjusting our expenses accordingly."
The council gave Mr. Whitson the green light for his plan to appoint a task force to study flood mitigation that includes levees and other barriers. He also has the authority to update the city's stormwater plan, which Mr. Whitson said hadn't been modified since the early 1990s.
"I think we should expedite it," said Vice Mayor Tom Card in his motion to give Mr. Whitson approval. "It's a critical thing for East Ridge's future."
Mr. Whitson was granted the approval to put out a request for proposals from engineering support for the stormwater plan.
In other business, the council delayed hearing about a plan for the city to turn used cooking oil to biodiesel. That presentation will be made at their next meeting, Nov. 12.
The council also granted permission for the city to move forward with plans to apply for Tennessee Department of Transportation grants to fund streetscaping on Ringgold Road as well as funds to pay for a planned overhaul of Exit 1 on Interstate 75. The grant deadline is next week, but the city will submit its application Friday.
Adam Crisp covers education issues for the Times Free Press. He joined the paper's staff in 2007 and initially covered crime, public safety, courts and general assignment topics. Prior to Chattanooga, Crisp was a crime reporter at the Savannah Morning News and has been a reporter and editor at community newspapers in southeast Georgia. In college, he led his student paper to a first-place general excellence award from the Georgia College Press Association. He earned ...
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