The city forester says it could take months to truly deal with all the damage caused by last week’s tornado that touched down in Windsor.
On the afternoon of Thursday, September 3, a tornado passed over Windsor, specifically the Riverside and Forest Glade neighbourhoods, knocking down power lines and uprooting trees and snapping tree limbs.
The Northern Tornadoes Project at Western University in London determined it was an EF1 tornado, packing a max wind speed of 165 km/h.
City Forester and Manager of Forestry Yemi Adeyeye says city crews and contractors have been working non-stop to take care of removing any tree debris to open up roads and sidewalks and deal with problem trees.
“We’ve been trying as fast as we can to remove some impending damage from trees,” he says. “These are trees where they have limbs hanging on branches on the trees that might fall if anything were to happen.”
At this time, the city says all roads have now been cleared and remain open to traffic, but there are still numerous tree failures and debris affecting sidewalks throughout the core of the storm-affected area.
According to the city, 1,000 requests for service have been received so far, with approximately 600 classified as emergency or urgent.
The Forestry Department is prioritizing emergency situations, hazardous tree conditions, downed trees, and the hardest-hit areas.
Adeyeye says after the immediate cleanup, one of the big jobs will be identifying problem trees that could be at risk of falling during a future weather event due to damage during the tornado.
“There are category ones, the ones we really need to get to. Even though they look like they’re standing, they need to go right away,” he says. “Then there is category two, where after we finish the process, the cleanup, and everyone is done, we have to go back to them and assess them.”
Adeyeye says even after everything looks cleaned up, they will need to assess all the trees to make sure there is no damage to the trunk or limbs that will pose a long-term risk to the general public.
“There are just going to be some isolated ones where there are big leaves that fell from them, and we need to go back and look at what the load distribution looks like on those trees,” he says. “What does the wound look like? Is it a wound that will heal, or is it a wound that we just need to remove the whole tree itself?”
The public is reminded that if they have contacted 311 to report an issue, please do not call again, as the call has already been put into the system, but it will take city crews time to get to each and every report.
Pick-ups of properly prepared storm-related tree waste will be collected along with your regular yard waste pick-up.
An additional tree waste collection for Windsor residents will also take place the week of September 14, with more details expected to be released September 11.
For tree waste collection, Windsor residents are asked to:
· Limit the length of the branches to 4 feet (122 centimetres);
· Limit the thickness of the branches to no more than 4 inches (10 centimetres) thick;
· Limit the weight of the branches to 44 pounds (20 kilograms); and
· Tie tree branches together, if possible.
Any other storm-related tree waste not meeting the above requirements can be dropped off at the City’s Public Drop Off Depot (3560 North Service Road East) at no charge.
For more information, please contact 311.