'We don't have the resources': Worries from residents grow about downed tree cleanup

On streets, yards and boulevards across Winnipeg, as residents and city crews continue to hack and saw through the damage of last week's massive storm, a new concern among the piles of debris is growing.

Mayor Brian Bowman is worried long term effects of the storm could be felt in the city's urban forest for years to come, specifically from invasive species and diseases such as Dutch elm.

"If some of those downed elm trees that are diseased are put onto public lands and they freeze, and then in the spring we have hatchings occur, it could have catastrophic affects on our urban tree canopy beyond what we've seen in the last few days," Bowman said.

There are also concerns about how to get all the downed trees cleaned up in a timely fashion.

Power has been restored to all but a couple of hundred homes in the city, and now the focus is shifting from safety and security to the giant cleanup of what officials estimate as more than 30,000 trees down on public land and tens of thousands more on private property.

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So far, the city's offer of help to residents for cleanup has been a free drop off for tree debris at the Brady Road landfill or 4R depots. Forestry crews from Saskatchewan and Alberta are expected in the city Wednesday to help with the effort.

Bowman admits these efforts are likely not enough and there is growing demand for the city to do more to help.

"Not everybody has a pickup truck; not everybody has a chainsaw and the scale is pretty large," Bowman told reporters Tuesday.

According to Bowman, the scope of the clean up and what the city is prepared to do is linked to a provincial response to a request for disaster financial assistance.

"One of the things we would like not to worry about is the overall cost — to know that the financial assistance will be there when we need it," Bowman said.

Bowman acknowledged the city is getting an increasing numbers of calls for city–wide pick up of debris and confusion of what the city might or might not pick up. For now he would only say staff were looking at all kind of options.

'We don't have the resources'

Robert Dupas spent part of his weekend at his daughter's Crescentwood home clearing the driveway by hauling fallen branches from trees on the boulevard. There are similar piles of debris dotting the block in either direction.

"I think I'm typical that we're not all capable of handling something like this. We don't have the resources. Not everybody has a truck. And even if you do have a truck, I look at this size of this limb... you know even two guys would have a hard time lifting this up and then to haul it away all on your own and [by] your [own] expense. To me it's unrealistic," Dupas told CBC News.

Dupas says he's seen dozens of streets in similar condition in his travels around the city over the past few days and has no difficulty labelling what happened last week "a disaster."

Dupas agrees with Bowman that the problem will get worse if the piles of debris sit for months.

"That is going to sit there and now we're going to have a real problem especially when spring comes and the critters in the wood start getting active again and we have more contamination," Dupas said.

A few blocks away, Henry Ritchot has the chainsaws out and a slightly different view as he starts clearing some of the downed trees on his property. 

"Everybody wants the city to do everything, but then the minute the city wants to raise taxes they all freak out," Ritchot said.

But Ritchot acknowledged the storm "was a disaster" and asking the provincial and federal governments for help was a probably a wise move.

So far the province has been non–committal about how it would react to requests for disaster financial assistance.

"We continue to assess the scope and extent of the impacts, and will continue to work with our local government partners. Again, our priority at this point is having power restored to those communities throughout Manitoba that are still in the dark. While response efforts are ongoing and a full assessment of the impacts has yet to be completed, we expect the majority of the costs will be borne by Manitoba Hydro" wrote a spokesperson for Premier Brian Pallister.