Crews continue picking up the pieces two weeks after a severe thunderstorm slammed into Missoula and surrounding communities. The City of Missoula is now offering to pick up residential tree debris.
Piles of tree debris still litter yards in almost every Missoula neighborhood. Hurricane force winds the evening of July 24th toppled power lines and flattened or damaged trees that stood for generations.
Experts estimate at least 80% of city trees sustained some type of damage.
In the days immediately following the storm, county and city crews focused their clean-up efforts on public rights-of-way, including streets, sidewalks and alleys. At that time officials said they did not have the capacity to remove debris from private property.
That changed this week. Nick Holloway, of Missoula County’s Office of Emergency Management says local government crews now have more leeway to help out residents.
“It’s really the evolution of a disaster like this,” Holloway said.
Crews will move through all of Missoula’s neighborhoods over the next four to six weeks. Planned pickup areas will be posted every Friday at the county’s website missoula.co/storm.
“We needed as much help as we could get early on, and we did not intend to haul private debris off residential properties until we had a better assessment of just how much debris there was and how much help was needed with that,” Holloway said.
It’s unclear what the clean up effort will cost. Following local disaster declaration requests, Governor Greg Ginaforte issued a state disaster declaration for Missoula and Mineral counties.
That means the state will spend money from the general fund to help the area get back on its feet.
