New London residents should place brush curbside
By Erik Buchinger
New London residents have until this weekend to pile up their brush for curbside pickup.
The city will continue to pick up curbside storm damage brush through the week of Aug. 12.
Residents are asked to place brush on their curb by Sunday, Aug. 11.
The city will make one final pass through to pick up brush. Afterward, residents are asked not to place brush on the curb and take any remaining brush directly to the Floral Hill brush drop-off site.
The board of public works discussed the July 20 storm during its meeting on Monday, Aug. 5.
“Most of our crew reported to work on that Saturday,” New London Director of Public Services Chad Hoerth said. “The first goal was to try and get the roads cleared for emergency vehicles to get through.”
Hoerth said the crew cleaned as much as it could before focusing attention on debris pickup.
DTAK was hired to assist with clean up, and Hoerth said it would have taken months without them helping out.
“With the amount of debris we had, if we had to do it on our own, it would have been till Christmas maybe,” Hoerth said. “We would have been plowing snow and debris at the same time.”
Mid State Tree Service and New London Tree Service assisted with taking down some dangerous trees and branches that New London Utilities would be unable to without some type of bucket truck.
Hoerth was asked if there was any funding available for elderly community members with trees in the yard and driveway.
“Not from the city, but the football team was awesome and came out to help,” Hoerth said. “I think they started in residential areas and then went to the parks, which was huge.”
Hoerth said the brush is being taken to DTAK’s site.
“We had so much that I don’t know what we would do with it,” Hoerth said.
The city will still host an annual fall curbside pickup for leaves and brush in October.