The Town of LaSalle is stepping in to help residents clean up after a weekend of severe weather across Windsor-Essex.
A powerful storm Friday evening brought strong wind gusts estimated between 110 and 129 kilometres an hour and heavy rain, all of which knocked out power to thousands and left downed trees and branches across the region.
Two more rounds of heavy rain on Sunday dropped between 40 and 110 millimetres of rain, depending on the area, causing flooding in roadways and basements.
LaSalle mayor Crystal Meloche says overall the town was pretty lucky. She said there were some residents who reported large branches from Friday’s storm, but that she hasn’t heard from anyone who had basement flooding.
Meloche says there was some flooding on roads, including concerns in the Front Road and Adams Lane area, but says that occurred as the town is still on the existing drainage system as construction on Front Road is ongoing.
She says to help residents deal with storm debris, the town is launching a special branch collection program for larger tree limbs.
“We’d ask them to go to the Town of LaSalle customer service website and submit their information and their address. And then starting next Tuesday, Public Works would go to those residents specifically to hopefully be able to chip and take care of any of those branches that were too large for people to dispose of on their own.”
Meloche says the town avoided the widespread damage seen elsewhere.
“We were pretty lucky overall in the Town of LaSalle. It seems that other areas may have had more damage than we did. The damage we’ve seen mostly is from tree branches, a few trees here and there. I did see a few roofs that had some shingles missing from it, some fences blown down, but overall it wasn’t as widespread as damage as we’ve had in the past with some of the storms.”
She says she hasn’t heard from any residents who experienced flooding.
“I did check with Public Works, and they hadn’t at the time received any calls either. So that’s great news. Hopefully nobody did experience that. I did hear, unfortunately, that people in South Windsor and the Windsor area did have some flooding, and so hopefully they can get that taken care of. I feel bad for anybody who goes through that, but as far as I’m aware, we didn’t have anything like that in the Town of LaSalle, or at least it’s just not been reported to us yet.”
Meloche adds that this isn’t something the town offers after each storm, but due to the extensive damage, they wanted to help residents as much as possible.
Residents are reminded that the service is only for larger branches that have been moved to the curb, and town crews may need several days to reach every address depending on demand.
Those looking to be added to the list for branch pickup can register here.