Monday limb and debris cleanup in Batesville has been delayed because wet ground has limited access to the town’s debris dump, Mayor Jerry Autrey said.

City workmen and equipment had been scheduled to begin removing debris from curbsides to assist in cleanup from last Wednesday’s storm. A high wind toppled trees and broke away limbs in areas throughout the city, hitting especially hard the Court, Bates, Church and East Street areas at the heart of town.

“Everybody get as much as you can close to the curb; the more you can get to the curb, the quicker we can get it out of the way,” Autrey said last week.

Assistance will be available when limbs are too large to be dragged to curbside, the mayor added.

City workers will use boom-mounted power lifting equipment to lift limbs and debris and place them into city dump trucks for removal. The City of Senatobia has loaned a smaller boom truck to augment a large, knuckle-boom, which is capable of lifting larger pieces, Autrey said.

The booms will lift the debris and place it into city dump trucks, but until the access to the dump dries, the cleanup work must be delayed, the mayor said. Unofficial measurements have recorded an additional four inches or more of rainfall on the city during the five days since four inches fell during Wednesday’s storm.

Pending Monday is a decision by the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta Levee District on the city’s request for loan of its wood chipper, Mayor Autrey said. The large wood chipper is capable of grinding large tree pieces into wood chips, he said.