CITY STREET CREWS DIRECT EFFORTS AT STORM DAMAGE

Last Thursday's thunderstorm in Cape Girardeau took its toll on many stately trees. Now clean-up efforts are exacting a cost on city streets

That's because city street crews have been busy picking up branches throughout town since Thursday night's storm, and every other type of street maintenance has been placed on the back burner.

Kevin McMeel, assistant Public Works director, said 19 Public Works employees and eight stormwater employees are on the crews, which have been moving street-to-street all over town.

Still, quite a few branches remain on Cape Girardeau curbs.

"It seems like we have been stopping at every other house, but it's probably not quite that bad," McMeel said. "I couldn't even guess how many homes were affected."

The Public Works Department isn't the only organization keeping busy with storm damage. Area tree services are overrun with customers wanting trees pulled off of their homes, cut up and hauled away.

Debbie Wright of Wright's Tree Service said her business received 13 calls Thursday night, 52 Friday and another 20 by noon Monday. Her husband and other employees prioritized the calls by the seriousness of the damage.

"We usually get three or four calls a day, five at the most," Wright said. "We won't get them done for two weeks.

"I think people are calling everybody. If they call us first, they call around and see if they can get anyone else faster."

The likelihood of quicker service is slim. Norma Burke of Semo Tree & Landscaping said it's the busiest her company has been in 25 years of operation. Employees have chopped and hauled from dawn until dusk since Friday.

Thursday's storm followed a month of bad weather, which included a major wind storm about three weeks ago. City crews were called out to clean branches then, but fewer homes were affected.

Aside from all the storm clean-up, some crews have worked in the Red Star district, collecting sandbags and trash as floodwaters recede.

Collected branches are being hauled to the 1300 block of S. West End Blvd., and McMeel said individual residents are free to take their own yard waste there, but only if it is from the storm.

Most of the collected branches will end up as mulch. The city intends to put all the limbs employees collect into a tub grinder, then haul the mulch to Arena Park, where it will be free for the taking.