Savoy Ice Storm Cleanup Could Total $250KBy Noah Hoffenberg
iBerkshires Correspondent
09:22AM / Sunday, March 01, 2009
SAVOY, Mass. – When all is said and done, the cleanup from the Dec. 11 ice storm in Savoy – one of the hardest hit areas in the state – could cost in excess of $250,000.
The Army Corps of Engineers has surveyed the damage, as has a representative from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Susan McGrath, Savoy office manager and assistant to the Selectmen.
FEMA recently set up a joint operations office with its Bay State counterpart, MEMA, in Holyoke.
Part and parcel with the downing of heavy numbers of trees, the ice storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands Massachusetts residents, with some homes powerless for periods exceeding a week.
Some of those homes were in Savoy, said McGrath. Resident Eric Krutiak lives off Route 116 with his wife and two children, and said it was heartbreaking to see the devastation in town.
"It was unlike anything I'd ever seen," said Krutiak, also town moderator and a former selectman. "It was really sad to see all of these trees broken. It made you feel really, really bad."
He and his family had to deal with power loss for four days, but he knew of others who had gone much longer without electricity or heat. One good thing for Krutiak: "It was nice to have no phone for eight days."
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Photos by Noah Hoffenberg
Selectmen's assistant Susan McGrath at work in the Savoy town office |
And while the town spent about $13,500 to contend with the storm's immediate aftermath for tree clearing, chipping, road work and other emergency needs, the final bill will be significantly higher, said McGrath on Friday. "The cleanup itself is going to be close to $250,000, if not a little more."
She said the town has stockpiled 560 cubic yards of debris at a site on Route 116, east of the town offices near Bush Road. Another estimated 11,011 cubic yards of debris is still along roadsides and hanging from trees, much off it buried under heavy layers of snow.
"There's a lot more work to be done," McGrath said of the cleanup needed along Savoy's 50-plus miles of roads. A lot of "hangers" and "leaners" are still dangling precipitously from broken trees, she said.
McGrath said the final tallies, however, aren't in, and Savoy is waiting to hear from FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers in that regard. Damage in nearby towns in Western Massachusetts, in which the Corps has completed estimates, has ranged from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to local reports.
The town has six months from the date of the declared emergency, which was announced at the state and federal levels Dec. 12 and 13, to complete its reports to file for aid, said McGrath.
During the storm, the town had boosted part-time police officers to full-time hours and hired contractors for cleanup of roads and trees, among other expenses.
When the snow melts, there won't be any burning, said McGrath, per Department of Environmental Protection rules. The fallen trees limbs can be moved, as trees in Savoy are not infected by the Asian longhorned beetle, a tree killer, that's been quarantined elsewhere in the state.
McGrath expects it to take about a month for all the paperwork to be in order, when the town will have the final estimates of damage and cleanup to apply for aid.
FEMA representatives could not be reached for comment. |
