Politics & Government

Cleanup Crews Hit Rockville Streets

The city is spending up to $100K for out-of-state help with storm recovery.

 

Storm cleanup continued across Rockville this weekend as the city’s Department of Public Works received backup from out-of-state crews. 

City public works crews are working with crews from the city’s recreation and parks department, which maintains Rockville’s trees. Work began Monday to clear trees and debris from city right-of-way, in order to open roads and sidewalks following the powerful “derecho” storm that swept through the region on June 29.

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from a contingency fund in the city manager’s budget, said Craig Simoneau, the city’s Department of Public Works director. The contract for outside help, with Florida-based AshBritt, Inc., is not to exceed $100,000, Simoneau said.

“They are the ones who helped us in the 2010 snowstorm,” he said. 

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Unlike the county, “We have been collecting all week,” Simoneau said.

Two city neighborhoods were hit hard by the storm, he said.

“The biggest one was New Mark Commons,” where a tree crashed through a garage of a home on Welwyn Way, Simoneau said. “Entire lengths of the streets were covered with debris.”

The second hard-hit neighborhood was Fallsmead, he said.

City crews completed their first pass through the neighborhoods to collect debris on Friday and began to tackle the Twinbrook and Potomac Woods communities, which also had significant damage.

Crews have been working overtime hours to collect debris and planned to work through the weekend. They couldn’t collect debris Wednesday, when the county’s transfer station was closed, but tree chipping continued on the Fourth of July holiday, Simoneau said.

There was no significant damage to city buildings or facilities, he said.

But the city’s water treatment plant in Potomac was inaccessible for two-and-a-half days as a fallen tree blocked the road to the plant, temporarily preventing workers from delivering fuel or chemicals. A backup generator kept the plant operating even after the storm knocked out power to a Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission plant. Pepco removed the tree Monday morning and operations resumed as normal.

Simoneau described in The Gazette how close the city came to a “boil water” advisory.

Large trees fell around the city, including across Baltimore Road near the Civic Center and across Wootton Parkway, which was closed between Preserve Parkway and West Edmonston Drive until Monday morning.

The city is using its three knuckle boom trucks and city dump trucks to remove trees. Help from Florida arrived on Thursday in the form of four more trucks. Each is about twice as large as the city’s trucks.

Crews are hauling debris to the county’s Shady Grove Transfer Station. Crews completing regular refuse and recycle collections are being sent back out to collect small yard waste for a few hours each day until the transfer station closes.

Wood chips from ground up trees are being piled at the Rockville Swim and Fitness Center.

Residents gave public works crews generally high marks last week. “There was presence out in the street and that’s what needs to be there,” .

Crews were scheduled to spend Saturday morning clearing debris that was pushed off the Carl Henn Millenium Trail along Wootton Parkway between Falls and Glen Mill roads.

As trees and debris are removed from city streets, sidewalks and trails the focus will turn to cleaning up city parks and other property, Simoneau said.

City residents should place at curbsides yard debris up to 8 feet long and 2 feet in diameter. That is the size that can be set out for regular weekly collection by the city.

“As long as it’s not more than 8 feet long, we’re good to go,” Simoneau said. “That’s the length of the bed of our truck.”

“Put it at the curb and we’ll get it. Don’t worry about your day, just put it out as soon as you can and we’ll get it as soon as we can.”

Much work remains, Simoneau said.

“The question is how many people are going to set up stuff behind us?” he said.

In many cases, contractors helping homeowners clear their yards have yet to arrive. Crews won’t complete their first pass through the city until later this week, when the Florida crews will depart. Simoneau predicted that it will be “six or seven weeks to get to a normal level” for debris collections.

“After we clear the whole city we’ll sweep back through and collect a second time,” he said.


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