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NewsJune 11, 1993

Three storms within the last week have left Cape Girardeau public works crews scrambling to dispose of downed trees and tree limbs. "We are still working on (last) Friday's storm damage," Public Works Director Doug Leslie said Thursday. "Since Friday, we have been removing trees. We have a chipper with one crew and two other crews are just picking up the trees and limbs," he added...

Three storms within the last week have left Cape Girardeau public works crews scrambling to dispose of downed trees and tree limbs.

"We are still working on (last) Friday's storm damage," Public Works Director Doug Leslie said Thursday.

"Since Friday, we have been removing trees. We have a chipper with one crew and two other crews are just picking up the trees and limbs," he added.

City crews are having to go back over some areas because of two storms Wednesday, which dumped more than an inch of rain on the city and brought high winds that uprooted trees and damaged power lines.

On Friday, a severe storm with high winds swept through the city, tearing down trees and power lines. "In Friday's storm alone, we had over 100 calls and most of those were streets being blocked by downed trees and that sort of thing," Leslie said.

Some tree limbs are being mulched with the chipper. Others are being hauled to the city's composting site near Shawnee Park, where later they will be ground into mulch.

"I would say probably most of our street personnel, and sewer and storm water personnel have been involved in either reacting to the rains or the wind damage," said Leslie. He estimated that about 35 to 40 city public works employees have been involved in the cleanup work.

At this point, the city has yet to calculate the costs associated with storm damage and cleanup. "We really haven't had time to tally it," said Leslie.

There's been some overtime costs and equipment expenses associated with the cleanup work. On top of that, Wednesday morning's storm put the public works' radio base station out of commission.

"The one in the morning was a pretty severe electrical storm. It hit our radio equipment over here," said Leslie from his Kingshighway office. As of Thursday, the department was relying on a small backup base station to communicate with city crews.

"It is more of a problem in terms of communicating with the people as opposed to the cost of it," said Leslie.

Overtime costs have been fairly small. "We had some personnel working overtime last evening for a while but it hasn't been a major problem for us," he said Thursday.

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City crews, for example, didn't work this past weekend. The cleanup work resumed Monday morning.

"The main problem associated with this (cleanup) is this is diverting crews that need to be doing street maintenance work and other activities," said Leslie.

"Right now is our prime construction timeframe. We are unable to do that because of the cleanup," he said. Such things as asphalt overlay and street patching work have been put on hold while the cleanup work continues.

Leslie said Cape Girardeau Special Road District crews have assisted in the cleanup effort.

The storm damage has also added to Union Electric's operating costs. Bob Robins, office and sales supervisor at the Union Electric office in Cape Girardeau, said the utility company had 107 employees working in various capacities to restore power in the aftermath of Friday's storm.

UE crews worked throughout the weekend restoring power and making repairs. "Most of our people that work outside worked from 8 o'clock Friday morning to sometime Monday morning," said Robins.

UE crews were out again Wednesday, repairing downed power lines in the aftermath of the latest storms.

At this point, the overtime and equipment costs, and the lost revenue from power outages have yet to be calculated, he said.

"There is a lot of equipment that had to be replaced, like transformers that were hit by lightning, and wires that had to be replaced," he pointed out.

All these costs, he said, add up. But he said the utility's operating budget takes into account possible storm damage. "It is just included in the cost to operate."

But while both he and Leslie are taking the bad weather in stride, they admit they're ready for some sunshine.

"We definitely need a break in the weather," said Leslie.

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