Boil Order Lifted In Gifford

The boil order has been lifted in the Champaign County town of Gifford, which sustained heavy tornado damage last month.

With flurries expected this week in central Illinois, Gifford Village Trustee Dustin Ehler said the cleanup is going smoothly. He said the focus is shifting from debris removal to tearing down badly damaged structures; something he says will be easier with the drop in temperatures.

“You know, as long as we don’t get too deep in frost, anyone wanting to build a house is still going to be able to do some excavating, and so on and so forth. Right now, the ground is real soft and any of the equipment out there is sinking in and tracking up and we’re getting stuff tracked on the roads. If we can get a little frost on the ground to hold the equipment up, that’s actually going to help.”

In the hard-hit town of Washington, cleanup efforts there are still focused on debris removal. Sara Sparkman with the Tazewell County Emergency Management Agency said she does not expect that to be held up because of this week’s weather.

“Washington is continuing to cleanup,” Sparkman said. “It’s going to be a longer process than other places because of the extent of the damage. Though, to be able to get another week or two before the first snow that would be…well, the next first now…that would be helpful to get a little more debris out of the area.”

Meanwhile, some tornado cleanup efforts in the southern Illinois town of Brookport have been halted because of the weather. Workers there are treating roads ahead of a storm, which could drop sleet and snow.