MORGAN CITY, La. — The city’s garbage truck fleet is short one side-loader truck as city officials are still in the process of deciding what action they should take regarding getting a truck to replace the one that caught fire and went out of service last week.

“We have not made a decision yet,” Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said. “We’re still running the numbers to realize which way is the best. We do have enough trucks right now running to handle our garbage even though it’s a little difficult,” Grizzaffi said.

“We’re only running two trucks right now, two side-loaders, and that takes a whole lot of time to pick up the amount of cans that we pick up,” said Mike Loupe, city public works director.

Crews have been working six days a week to keep up with garbage pickup, he said.

Loupe said garbage will be picked up though it may take an extra day or two from the normal schedule, but residents should keep their cans out on the street to be picked up.

Loupe said the city has an old garbage truck that the city is replacing the engine in, and hopes to have that truck running by sometime next week.

The city only carries liability insurance on the garbage truck that caught on fire and did not have any other insurance policies on the truck, Grizzaffi said.

Loupe said the report the fire department released lists the cause of the garbage truck fire as undetermined.

Officials would rather make a decision that will benefit the city in the long-term rather than just making a quick decision, he said. “We can go out easily and buy a used truck right now, but we’re going to be in no better shape than we are right now. So we’re trying to make sure before we spend that kind of money that we look at all options.”

Grizzaffi said they’re “looking to solve the city’s sanitation problems.”

“So what we’re doing is running a cost analysis from our chief financial officer to determine revenue stream,” Grizzaffi said. “Once we put up all the expenses against the revenue and see how much we’re losing then at that point we can figure out what we’re going to need to do to make this thing successful, and that takes time.”