TRAVERSE CITY -- Almost six weeks after the March winter storm, that dumped massive amounts of snow and took down thousands of trees and branches, the clean up efforts continues.
Tree removal companies like Deering Tree Services in Maple City say in nearly 40 years in business they have never seen such widespread damage and mess created from a single storm. In fact, their customer call volume has tripled for this time of year.
They've even had to add an extra crew to respond to all the customers.
Deering Tree Service Owner Jack Deering says, "In terms of the amount of brush were cleaning up, were cleaning up enough to generate well-over 250 yards of wood chips per day, just with what our trucks hall in from our jobs... That's a lot more than normal. For this time of year, we're up probably 75% because were generally not even back to work at this point, to be this far into the year and have this come along it was really unexpected."
The huge mess was also unexpected for Grand Traverse County officials who received hundreds of calls from concerned residents -- looking for clean up help. So the county's Resource Recovery Council stepped up to assist severely hit areas like Garfield Township.
GTC Resource Recovery Council member Jeane Blood says,” We set up two programs --one was the curbside pick up and the other was the brush passes, where residents could come to this Keystone Road brush drop-off site, to drop off their own brush."
The curbside pickup, which is paid for by Garfield Township tax payer’s dollars, will continue in Garfield for the next couple of weeks.
For residents in other areas, the brush drop site off of Keystone Road in Traverse City is open, and for a small fee you can get rid of your trees and branches there.
