Sunbright community, neighbors come together for tornado clean-up efforts

MORGAN COUNTY, Tenn. ( WATE ) — Nearly two days after the small town of Sunbright was struck by an EF1 tornado, residents are still cleaning up debris.

Ben Hicks lives just up the street from the main strip of Sunbright and was at home during the storm.

“We went into the closet and we were just praying it would pass over us, and thank God it did not hurt the house,” he said.

His home narrowly avoided the tornado, but a downed tree left his front yard littered in debris.

“It did hit our tree and our electrical, unfortunately that’s out for now,” he said.

He and his family have been cleaning up for the past two days, but they’re not at it alone.

“Thankfully we’ve had some people that have helped us chopping up our tree, we really didn’t know what we were going to do, but thank God there was a gentleman that offered to help with a chainsaw,” Hicks said.

That gentleman was Blake Melancon. Melancon is a Frozen Head State Park ranger who lives in Oak Ridge. He came to Sunbright after the storm to help with cleanup efforts.

“Part of my family is from this area and I work in the county so I just figured they looked like they needed a lot of help up here,” he said. “So I figured I’d come and help and I was able to and I’m glad.”

The community in Sunbright accepted him as one of their own.

“It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been and that’s mostly what I’ve seen, just people coming together to be thankful over that. We had a late lunch at the church yesterday and that was really nice,” he said.

Hicks said his small town community coming together is no surprise.

“Just 15 minutes after the tornado happened, people were coming out of their houses getting together, hugging each other, and we were all in the street just 30-40 minutes after it happened,” he said.

There were no injuries reported from the storm, but several buildings in the town’s downtown area are severely damaged.

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