City Workers Deserve Gratitude

Mayor Sue Murray wrote a letter to the editor, praising public service employees for their great work during the recent ice storm.

The letter appeared in the Feb. 4 Banner-Graphic -- here's a link to it, and the full text follows, as well.
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To the Editor:
I have never been more proud of our city employees than I am today.

The challenges that the storms this week have brought have been plentiful and burdensome.

To a person their greatest concern has been how they can help to be sure that people in our community are safe; whether that's working extended shifts, taking on new responsibilities at the EOC (Putnam County Emergency Operations Center) or helping other departments.

City streets have been plowed and treated by the 24-hour work of our Department of Public Works.

Our Fire Department has responded to nearly one hundred calls and helped clear trees and branches from roadways.

Greencastle Police personnel spent three days working two 12-hour shifts patrolling our streets and answering the many calls from our citizens that came through Central Dispatch.

Our utility personnel have weathered the challenges of power outages and worked diligently to keep our water and wastewater systems operating at full efficiency.

Parks personnel are clearing walkways and cleaning debris and our cemetery crew has continued to provide services to families and their loved ones despite the weather.

All of this has been done without complaint, despite loss of sleep and time with their own families.

We all owe them a debt of gratitude.

What we have also learned is that events like this affect us all, regardless of township lines. Our ability to have a centralized, unified approach to dealing with emergency issues is our best response.

Our countywide emergency management team has done an outstanding job coordinating and tracking our responses. Duke Energy has brought in extra crews to restore power to the over 7,000 in this district that lost power and the National Guard stood ready to help with the response.

The meteorologists remind us that if we had received freezing rain rather than sleet our challenges would have been greater. For those of us now on the backside of the ice storm of 2011, we know that this challenge would have been greater if it weren't for the coordinated efforts of all involved and the dedication of the public service employees throughout the county.

Mayor Sue Murray

City of Greencastle