PLANTING SOME IDEAS IN N.D.G.
Reforestation — and recycling wood
About a quarter of the 400 trees damaged in the storm that tore through Notre-Dame-de-Grâce on Tuesday might have to be cut down, Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough Mayor Russell Copeman says.
Falling branches and trees damaged about 100 homes and dozens of vehicles, Copeman told reporters at N.D.G. Park on Friday morning, surrounded by mangled branches toppled by the storm.
He said the park — N.D.G.’s biggest — will remain closed to the public for weeks as workers clean up and inspect potentially fragile trees, most of which are silver, sugar or Norway maples.
“We need to have a qualified inspector come through here and say which trees need immediate work, which trees have to be cut down,” he said. “If a wind comes up, some of these trees are so badly damaged that it wouldn’t take much to have them fall.”
The west-end borough has started working on a reforestation plan for the park and other affected parts of the neighbourhood. “We’ll get to the replanting, probably in 2018,” Copeman said.
Some of the wood from the felled trees will be recycled, perhaps to make benches, he said. And the borough might ask artists to use some of the tree trunks to make sculptures.
“We’ll do our very best to recycle some of this terrible damage into something positive for the people of N.D.G.,” he said. “We will start looking at pieces that can be saved, how we can recycle some of that, but the sheer quantity of wood, it can’t all be saved.”
On Tuesday afternoon, a brief but powerful “microburst” swept through a section of N.D.G., with winds clocked at up to 120 kilometres per hour.
Copeman said that at the peak of the crisis, about 11,000 area homes were without power and 20 streets were closed because of downed trees and power lines.
As of Thursday evening, electricity had been restored to the vast majority of homes, he added.
All streets have reopened, but on many, piles of branches and tree trunks line sidewalks, awaiting pickup or wood chipping.
“The cleanup operation is going to take weeks,” Copeman said. “We’re asking people to be patient.”
Copeman said it’s too early to estimate the cost of the damage and cleanup.
Residents who want the city to compensate them for property damage caused by trees that were on public property must file a claim before Sept. 6, Copeman said.
He said the city will deal with branches that have fallen from private trees onto public property. But it will be up to property owners to trim and, if need be, cut down damaged trees on private land.
A permit is required to cut down a tree on private property and in cases where more than 40 per cent of the tree must be trimmed, Copeman said.
The city will grant such permits for free if the work is being done due to the storm, he said.
More information is available via the city’s 311 line. An inspector will be dispatched to assess the tree within 24 hours, Copeman said.