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LANETT — At a Tuesday evening work session, Lanett Mayor Kyle McCoy commended the city’s Electrical Department, Police and Fire & EMS employees on having done great work during an exceptionally busy Memorial Day holiday weekend.

Power was off for close to three hours Friday evening after a storm blew large limbs over and disabled three of the city’s four main feeder lines. Two of them taken out are on a large concrete pole off Gilmer Avenue. High wind from the storm broke a large limb from an oak tree, and it fell right on top of the two key lines. Another feeder line went down near the city’s wastewater plant.

The mayor asked Fire & EMS Chief Johnny Allen to talk about his department’s busy day on Sunday.

“We had car wrecks, motorcycle wrecks and four-wheeler wrecks,” he said. “It didn’t affect just our departments. East Alabama and LaFayette had busy days, too. At one time, every ambulance in Chambers County was tied up with some kind of accident. We all had very little downtime.”

Allen said that some of those injured were badly hurt.

“They need our prayers,” he said.

“Our guys really earned their pay this weekend,” McCoy said. “We want them to know we appreciate what they did and what they always do for us.”

City Attorney Stanley Gray said he had been doing some research in past city ordinances on the duties of a city manager. There’s one such ordinance that goes back to 1986 and another one to 1966. One of the ordinances, he said, might be in conflict with current state law. In the event of such a conflict, state law would have precedence.

One of the city ordinances allows the city manager to be responsible for supervising fire, EMS and police officers. State law does not permit that, putting that responsibility in the hands of the department heads and the mayor and council.

McCoy said the council is not ready to act on an ordinance right now.

“I want them to have something they can read and study,” he said. “We will then need to discuss it at a work session before putting it on the agenda for a vote.”