Thousands of trees lost limbs or toppled during this week’s storm, leaving a major clean-up problem on roads, in parks and on private property throughout the South Sound.
The City of Tacoma is facing such a large quantity of woody debris that it hired two private contractors Friday to help city crews remove limbs and fallen trees on streets and city rights of way. Areas particularly hard hit were along Schuster Parkway and Marine View Drive.
“They are out there clearing streets every which way,” spokeswoman Lorna Sutton said. “We know thousands of trees are down or damaged across the city.”
Crews from Metro Parks Tacoma were getting rid of limbs and trees with mobile chippers hauled to the parks.
Tacoma residents were advised to cut up branches small enough to fit into their normal curbside yard waste recycling containers to be collected on their regularly scheduled collection day. City collection crews will not accept bundled piles of branches adjacent to the containers, Sutton said.
Tacoma residents can haul bigger limbs to the city landfill at 3510 S. Mullen Street. The landfill will accept all tree debris from rate-paying customers at no charge from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m., seven days a week. Nonresidents can take woody debris to the landfill, but will be charged a minimum or $10 and $7.50 per 100 pounds beyond that.
Garbage and recycling haulers curtailed some regular routes in Pierce County on Friday because of hazardous road conditions. All of the county’s transfer stations were open except the one in Key City. Even so, the County Department of Public Works and Utilities advised people to wait until conditions improve before hauling material to transfer stations themselves.
Customers of American Disposal, DM Disposal, Murrey’s Disposal, Lakewood Refuse, LeMay Enterprises and Pierce County Refuse will be allowed to set out twice the amount of material next week at no additional charge. University Place Refuse and Westside Disposal customers were advised to leave containers by the curb for pick up when conditions improve.
A bigger problem were trees blocking highways.
The state Department of Transportation closed parts of seven state highways in the Puget Sound area because of fallen trees or danger presented by trees ready to fall. Six closures were in King County. State Route 507 in Thurston County was closed at milepost 11. None of the tree-related closures was in Pierce County.
The worst of the tree-related blockages on state roads was on state Route 18, Transportation Department spokeswoman Alice Finman said. The highway was closed Thursday between Interstate 90 and state Route 164 because of trees that fell under the weight of snow and ice.
Transportation Department maintenance crews worked throughout Friday clearing trees and possibly will still be working today on state Route 18, Finman said.
Metro Parks officials said the city’s parks are littered with branches and fallen trees, plus broken branches hung up in limbs and ready to fall.
“It’s a long way from over,” said parks superintendent Marina Becker. “We don’t know everything yet. It will continue for at least the next 24 hours.”
There’s a lot of ice and snow in the branches and it’s melting and releasing. The ice chunks are big and hard and they can hit you.
“A lot of people have cabin fever and want to get out,” Becker said, “but they need to be cognizant of where they’re going and the possible dangers. We don’t recommend going out on trails at all right now.”
Rob Carson: 253-597-8693
rob.carson@thenewstribune.com
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