Storm leaves a big cleanup job - WALB.com, Albany News, Weather, Sports

Storm leaves a big cleanup job

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By Stephanie Springer - bio | email

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A day after powerful storms tore through Albany crews have been working around the clock on cleaning up the damage left behind.

That violent thunderstorm rolled in just before 3:00PM, dumping three inches of rain in less than an hour. It left a mess in several areas and a big job for clean-up crews and homeowners as well.

Several streets flooded, traffic lights were out and a tree even fell on a house. It's caused a headache for homeowners, and a big job for clean-up crews. That's why they got to work bright and early to take on the task.

Crews were out bright and early today working on cleaning debris from yards and roads. Home owner's tree service companies and public had a lot of work to do after yesterday's torrential downpour.

We caught up to Lee Harper of Harper Tree Service, cleaning up a tree that fell into a yard on Hanover Street. "We had a strong southwest wind yesterday and it took this tree down. It was kind of top heavy and dead in the middle. That's what we got to look out for-- dead trees and diseased trees before we have a situation like this."

George Haggarty of Albany Public Works said, "What he's going to do is pump all this debris from in front of here. There was a lot more yesterday than usual. When we get these rains it's going to wash these streets of this pine straw and that's where your clogging is going to come from. When you have a downpour like we had yesterday it's really hard to keep up with it."

50 mile per hour winds tore through our area, and three inches of rain was dumped in less than one hour. But the main issue is pine straw and leaves, which clutter up and clog the catch basins.

The pine straw and the leaves fell much earlier this year, making a real problem, and street sweepers were out cleaning up all the pine straw.

Surprisingly, county public works reported they only had a couple limbs down. It took them a couple hours to clean it up, and they were done.

Thankfully, no injuries were reported from that storm.

 

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