Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Buffalo's Department of Public Works crew continues to collect debris left over from last week's EF-1 tornado that struck the city, resulting in millions of dollars of damages to residences, local businesses and city landscaping.
Department of Public Works Commissioner Nate Marton said Monday they will continue to collect debris this week in impacted areas,. Monday was the first official day of collection, based on what city residents have picked up from their homes.
"I think there's only a couple piles left on this street. We had a little interaction with some of the cars that were in the way of a couple piles, we'll come back and get those. But really good progress today, based on the what was out in front of us," said Marton during a Monday press briefing near the intersection of Carolina Street and Niagara Street.
"Last week we had that clean sweep that was last Wednesday. That was really, really helpful. A lot of residents put a lot of items out, and our crews across all departments cleaned those up. And of course, our team was out last Monday, you know, right after the storm, we got a lot of the big stuff out of the way, right away."
Marton also notes that city crews were out cleaning up Johnson Park, where a lot of substantial tree damage ensued.
"There was a lot of damage to a number of trees when I just drove through just a couple of minutes ago. You can see some of the unfortunate damage to the trees where we just had to, kind of, cut them off, where they had cracked and fallen down. Front end loaders were in the park itself picking up the debris, we've got some lawn damage that we're working on repairing and some sidewalk damage," said Marton.
"We know some of that just comes with cleaning up. And we'll get on that at some point in time, we'll get that scheduled to get that all back to great shape, just minus some of the tree limbs, unfortunately,"
After all assessed, the storm cut down a few dozen trees on city property and impacted about 50. Marton says they will replant the trees that had to get chopped down, or were split in the tornado.
In addition, commissioner Marton gave an updated assessed damage cost estimate for building structures in the city.
"The new estimates based on the damage and the estimates we're getting from Commissioner [William] Renaldo in the fire department is about $2.75 million. That's the new estimated value of the damage to those buildings," he said. "We've lost about 25 trees, 50 trees impacted. We don't put a dollar impact on that necessarily, but very mature trees in this neighborhood, which some would say would be priceless additions. We'll replant those."