CEDAR CITY, Utah – City crews spent the day hauling away hundreds of branches Monday, beginning a massive cleanup effort from Sunday’s spring snowstorm.
Piles of branches lined neighborhood streets. Workers filled dump trucks, while homeowners cleared yards.
“I’ve hauled off several loads of limbs and so on out of yards,” said Cedar City resident Mitchell Schoppmann. “Just trying to clean up the disaster.”
Close to 10 inches of snow fell during that freak storm on Mother’s Day. The heavy snow pulled down power lines and whole trees.
City manager Rick Holman said crews are working extra hours -- they haven’t had any reports of major damage.
“We’ll take care of it,” Holman said. “We’ll get the city cleaned up, and we’re just trying to make sure that everybody is safe and gets their debris taken care of.”
Holman said they’ve opened the landfill free of charge so residents can carry away tree debris. But they’re also making the rounds to collect it.
The city manager said city officials encourage as much neighborhood cooperation as possible. Residents say that’s the good thing about living in the Southern Utah community, everyone is willing to help.
“We’ve been cutting all morning,” said Brent Mackay. “There’s been me and my son-in-law -- and a friend came over and cutting. Now the city crew’s come and cleaned it up, and that’s the best thing because it’d take me two days to haul all this to the dump.”
Residents say it’s a small price to pay for the snowpack the spring storm gave to the mountains. That snow will provide desperately needed runoff going into summer.
