That’s a common aside these days — sort of a joke, but not really — from Lincoln Parks and Recreation Director Maggie Stuckey-Ross, who knows there are 6,000 cubic yards of tree debris in the Star City Shores parking lot waiting to be ground into mulch. Department employees already have been doing a lot of grinding, and debris is still coming to the site.
Three weeks after straight-line winds of 80-90 mph left hundreds of damaged trees and downed power lines in its wake, city crews are working to address damage reported in more than 1,500 calls from residents.
About 250 trees will need to be removed because of the storm, and to date, the department has 907 orders for limb pickup or removing hanging limbs.
City crews don’t remember anything like it in recent memory.
“We haven’t had to deploy outside resources at the level we are,” Stuckey-Ross said. “It’s unusual and not something we’ve experienced.”
The storm also knocked out power to nearly 40,000 Lincoln Electric System customers, the third-largest storm in Lincoln Electric System history that will cost the utility an estimated $1.5 million to $2 million.
Looking beyond recent memory, there have been worse storms.
A 1997 October snowstorm knocked out power to more than 50,000 customers. Trees cracking under the heavy snow sounded like firecrackers and the city spent up to $1.5 million to replant 5,000 trees it lost.
Mitch Schnainost, one of the owners of The Tree Guys, who has been in the tree business 32 years, remembers that one well.
While there have been worse storms, he said, the one July 31 has kept him very busy. His business fielded 150 calls in the first days, and 400-500 since then.
He and his crews are always busy, he said, so regular planned jobs had to be put on hold to deal with tree damage and the business is probably five to six weeks behind.
“We’ve been doing nothing but storm damage,” he said.
City officials can relate.
Listen now and subscribe: | | | |
They’ve closed all the debris drop-off sites to the public and have cleared debris at some, but they’re still working on clearing debris from Woods and Holmes Lake parks. The parking lot at Star City Shores is being used by the city, but it isn’t open to the public.
Two contractors are picking up right-of-way debris and the city’s forestry crews are focused on priority tree work. Contractors are also hauling debris from golf courses and non-designated drop sites.
Stuckey-Ross said she won’t know the cost to the city for some time. The first round of invoices from contractors totaled $116,550 and those invoices will keep coming.
The city has $271,000 in its Capital Improvement Program for storm damage, which Stuckey-Ross is sure they’ll exceed. She’s hopeful that a state emergency declaration will offer some relief in the form of disaster funds. Appropriations in the upcoming budget can also be used, she said, and the department may need to dip into its reserves.
Private residents are also continuing to deal with the fallout of the storm.
Darwin Schwisow, who built his house in the Belmont area in 1978, heard a “thunk” during the storm, which turned out to be a very big limb from a very big tree that landed on the roof of his garage. It smashed his gutters and damaged a shed.
“The limb is as big around as I am . . probably 40- to -50 foot long,” he said. “It stayed on the tree, so I think that cushioned it coming down. I’m glad it did or we wouldn’t have a house.”
The limb punched a hole in his garage roof, but Schwisow, who is 81 and had recently been released from the hospital after a bout of pneumonia, couldn’t get any tree services on the phone or to return his calls in the days after the storm.
After a couple of days, his handyman got a few people together, got the limb down and hauled it away.
Schwisow said that wasn’t cheap, but it was good to have it off his roof. They put plastic over the hole because he can’t fix it until the insurance adjuster arrives, which was supposed to happen Saturday.
He still needs what remains of a big tree in his yard removed, he said, because it was damaged. When he did reach a tree service, they told him it would cost him $7,000 unless he could wait until after Christmas, when it will cost half that. He’s going to wait.
“There’s no way I can afford $7,000 to take a tree out,” he said.
As for the city — debris cleanup will continue (as damage is cleared away, city crews and residents are finding more damaged limbs). So they’ll keep making mulch.
“We are going to have so much mulch,” Stuckey-Ross said. “We have more than we need and more than the community needs.”
She's talking with Lincoln Transportation and Utilities about using some of the debris for its biochar project, and workers have ground some and taken it to a recycler working with the city.
“I’m definitely open to creative ideas,” she said.
A massive pile of tree debris in the Star City Shores parking lot near South 27th Street and Nebraska Parkway is still waiting to be ground into mulch.