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When a storm with high winds and massive rainfall hit Dallas on June 9, city officials said the sheer volume of yard waste to collect off curbs was the worst they’d ever seen.
This time, after tornadoes touched down in Dallas late Sunday night, bulk and brush collection workers will face a new kind of challenge: a concentrated disaster zone, inaccessible roads and loads of structural damage.
But the amount of bulk they’re expecting from construction and demolition debris will be a major undertaking, said Assistant City Manager Joey Zapata.
“We expect the debris is going to be very different,” Zapata said.
Tim Oliver, interim director of Sanitation Services, said the city learned from the last major storm, and it has already hired contractors to help with storm collection so staffers can continue to focus on their routine bulk and brush routes. Six of 10 contract crews arrived Tuesday afternoon and began at the area around Walnut Hill and Marsh lanes in Preston Hollow, Oliver said.
On Sunday night, a tornado with up to 140 mph winds cut a 15-mile path from northwest Dallas into Richardson. City officials continued to survey sites Tuesday to assess the extent of the damage. Dallas Fire-Rescue counted 887 damaged structures — 104 of which were destroyed.
Dallas residents on Monday began to deal with the aftermath, slicing through tree trunks and large branches with chainsaws and putting them out on the curbs.
Manuel Rojas, 38, has yet to touch the large tree that collapsed into his home on Rickshaw Drive — still in shock over his loss and waiting for his landlord to deal with the rubble. Half a mile away, a tree was uprooted entirely in front of another home.
“Everything. Gone,” Rojas said Monday, a day after the tornado tore his home apart. “I cannot believe it.”
The street was lined with all kinds of materials, including a couch, patio furniture and a toilet bowl.
But lines of damaged vehicles with shattered windows are still parked and taking up space on the curbs, in the roads and on patches of grass. Other roads have been blocked off due to downed power lines or public works crews, making them inaccessible to bigger collection trucks.
Oliver hopes to complete brush collections from the storm within four weeks. While he wants to move more quickly this time, he said he also needs to give residents enough time to set out their brush before they move in to avoid circling back.
“There is a balance,” Oliver said Tuesday. “While everyone wants a very, very fast response, and that’s what we want, too, ultimately you’ve got to give people the time to get stuff out.”
For the June 9 storm, the Sanitation Services Department hired six contract crews to help with the additional bulk and brush. They had already been behind after an unusual 25,000 extra cubic yards had been set out in May. It took the city two months to finish storm collections.
Oliver said the other challenge is to make sure they separate out the vegetation from construction debris — all the more important for the volume of debris they’re expecting from structural materials because it slows down the process for grinding down brush to transport to the landfill, he said.
In the June storm, sanitation officials adjusted with a new system of temporarily storing brush on a 16-acre lot off Central Expressway owned by the Texas Department of Transportation. They then grind down the brush before hauling it to the McCommas Bluff Landfill.
Park and Recreation Department officials say road closures have also prevented them from getting from one park to another for a complete assessment. Brownwood, Walnut Hill Park and Northaven Trail have severe damage; park workers couldn’t begin to clear the trail due to downed power lines, but they began with haul-off efforts at the parks.
“This looks like a more severe storm than the June 9th storm, but it [is] in a more confined area,” Rosa Gallegos, park manager, said in an email. “We don’t have the widespread devastation like the last one, so cleanup efforts may be a little quicker this time around.”
Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall said Monday DPD officers are assisting with traffic in areas where signals are down, but that they’re short-staffed and working in multiple capacities. She said the challenge is to ensure they’re deploying officers in the places with the most need.
“We are working diligently to make sure that we have manpower to assist at those areas,” Hall said. “We’re just asking those residents to be patient.”