🎥 City: No residential collection of downed tree limbs

Property owners are responsible for any tree limb cleanup following the weekend ice storm.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

“We were lucky, and we got moisture, which is nice.”

Hays City Manager Toby Dougherty was breathing a sigh of relief Tuesday morning following Sunday’s ice storm.

Although 7,539 Midwest Energy customers remained without power at 1 p.m. today, all Hays customers were online. There were 9 rural customers east of Hays still without electricity .

The major streets in Hays were treated with brine Friday by Public Works employees in anticipation of the weekend storm.

“Brine is just a salt/water mixture that creates a layer that helps prevent anything from freezing on the street,” Dougherty explained.

“Brine is an application that works very good if it doesn’t get too cold and we don’t get a lot of rain with it that washes the brine off. We put a lot of brine down, saturating the streets. As soon as it started icing, the crews were out putting down a granular salt/sand mixture down.

“We were lucky in that a lot of the moisture came down as rain (1.13″) overnight Sunday into Monday morning. That prevented temperatures from getting as cold as predicted (by the National Weather Service.) At 4:30 a.m. Sunday, it was raining pretty heavily and 34 degrees. If the rain had stopped earlier, we probably would have had just a solid sheet of thick ice on all the roads. Monday morning, the residential streets were a little slick but the arterials were all open.”

One-half inch of ice did coat sidewalks and trees.

City crews are picking up tree limbs on city right of way and city property only. — City crews are picking up tree limbs on city right-of-way and city property only.

Some big limbs came down, but Dougherty said the city is picking up only what is in the city right-of-way or on city property.

“We typically only pick up tree limbs in residential areas when it becomes a matter of concern to the health and welfare of the residents.

“When we had the windstorm (July 13) and there were lots of limbs blocking curbs and blocking streets, and others that were about to fall on passersby, and the sheer volume would take private haulers months to get rid of, that’s when the city gets involved.”

Dougherty knows there was some tree damage around town, but called it “very minimal and very localized, from what it could be.”

He encouraged residents to call the Parks Department at (785) 628-7375 for a list of qualified private tree removal specialists in Hays.

Tree limbs can also be taken to the Ellis County Landfill at no charge.