Serving Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierra

City Backlogged Clearing Post-Storm Tree Limbs

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Julia Ritchey

  The storm that hit Reno earlier this week caused a torrent of tree limbs to come down and the city is backlogged trying to remove them. Reno Public Radio's Julia Ritchey reports.

Overall, Monday's weather caused fairly insignificant impact to the city's tree canopy, with no entire trees falling but plenty of lost limbs.

Steve Churchillo is the city's chief arborist. He says contrary to what some may think, the limbs that fell were due to the weight of the snow and not the health of the tree.

"What's happening is we have a heavy snow load, given the wet snow occurring in such a short period of time, and the accumulations. And many, many of the trees still have leaves on and have not dropped their leaves yet. So as a result that compounds the weight load on branches, so it really has nothing to do with the drought."

While Churchillo is receiving an influx of calls, he says the city is only responsible for cleaning up public property.

"If it's a private tree, citizens are responsible to clean up branches. We will not clean up branches that are drug into the street from private property."

Churchillo estimates it will take more than a month for his three-person crew to finish the job.

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Julia Ritchey is a former reporter at KUNR Public Radio.