'Lend a hand to your neighbours' during storm cleanup, Winnipeg mayor asks

As crews trek across Winnipeg trying to make a dent in the number of fallen trees scattered around the city, Mayor Brian Bowman is urging people to use common courtesy as they clean up their yards.

At a news conference on Friday, Bowman reminded people to bring any debris to designated disposal sites — and asked them to refrain from just dumping broken branches into the street.

"If you think that that's helping, give your head a shake," Bowman said. "That's not the Winnipeg way."

Bowman said he hopes people will use the mild weather forecast for this weekend to help out where they can in cleaning up the city's streets.

"If you have a truck, if you have tools that can provide some assistance, lend a hand to your neighbours," he said. "Because we need everybody to do their part."

'Gotta step up'

On Friday afternoon, that's what people were doing at the Brady Road Resource Management Facility, which is one of the few locations where the city is encouraging people to bring their storm debris.

Blair Grabski and his stepson, Ayden Lukey, made six trips to the landfill to dump tree branches from their small cove.

Grabski said he thinks it will take city crews a long time to get to his area of town, so he thought he'd spend a few days helping out.

"Sometimes you've just gotta step up and get it done yourself," he said. "Everyone's working hard to get everything back to normal, and this is just a small part of it."

Bob Davidson, who was at the Brady site Friday with a truckload of branches, said he wasn't planning on taking storm-related jobs — until a couple of his friends needed help.

Even in all his years working as a landscaper, Davidson said he can't remember seeing anything quite like the wreckage left by the storm.

"This is crazy," he said, standing near a massive pile of branches. "Wait until they get it all here. It's gonna be a lot bigger than this — this is just getting started."

Map tracks cleanup

The city is asking people to bring tree and branch debris to the Brady Road Resource Management Facility or one of the city's 4R Winnipeg depots to get rid of them for free during operating hours.

The city is also opening the Summit Road Landfill for storm debris drop-offs on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Mayor Bowman said he has been in contact with the Association of Manitoba Municipalities and Municipal Relations Minister Jeff Wharton regarding the massive cleanup required after the intense snow storm that hit the province last week. 

Bowman said he anticipates speaking with Premier Brian Pallister next week about the city's request for disaster financial assistance from the province.

"We appreciate the fact that their priority right now, as is ours, is life safety," said Bowman. "There's a big job that the province has right now, and we're trying our absolute best to work collaboratively and support their efforts."

On Friday, the city launched a storm response website, which features an interactive map to show cleanup progress across the city. The website also has answers to a list of frequently asked questions about storm cleanup.

Also on Friday, the city announced it will be temporarily closing Kildonan Park, Crescent Drive Park and St. Vital Park for public safety reasons. It's expected that all three parks may be closed for several weeks.