Nearly three weeks after a historic windstorm blew through Utah and Salt Lake City is moving into phase 2 of their clean-up process. The storm took out roughly 3,000 trees in Salt Lake City alone, according to Mayor Mendenhall. Many streets are still full of debris and, in some cases, are even blocked because of fallen trees and branches from the storm.
The mayor expects clean up efforts to ramp up this weekend to speed up the recovery process. “Rolling out phase two of our citywide clean-up… takes us another step closer to recovery from the storm.”
So what exactly does phase 2 clean-up mean? It means that officials have asked residents to place all of their storm debris at their curb and the city will come around and pick it up. The only drawback is that it could take several weeks to remove it, with the city saying they hope to have all storm debris removed by late October.
If you would like to speed up debris removal, it would be an excellent opportunity to support a local business and rent a dumpster or seek local junk removal services. You wouldn’t need to be on the cities timeline and could get rid of all of your debris asap.
In addition to working on cleaning residential areas, the city is also still working to clean up parks so they can re-open. There are still six parks closed to the public so that city crews can continue to remove fallen trees, branches, and debris. The closed parks are:
- Fairmont Park
- Sunnyside Park
- Lindsey Gardens
- Riverside Park
- Washington Square
- Salt Lake City Cemetery
In addition, the east side of Liberty Park is still being cleared and should be avoided. If your favorite park isn’t listed above, then you are in luck; you can continue to visit! All city golf courses are also open, with the proper COVID-19 restrictions in place, of course.
If you wonder what happens to all of the debris once it is hauled away since most of it is wood, it has a high reusability level! In an effort to increase sustainability, wood can be diverted from a land-fill and reused!
