Hinsdale storm cleanup persists with wood chips up for grabs

Hinsdale public services crews continue to clean up brush and debris almost two weeks after two violent storms wracked the village during a three-day period.

“Right now, we are still in the process of making our first pass through town picking up brush and taking down broken and dangerous tree limbs,” said village forester John Finnell Tuesday, June 29.

Two storms — the first June 19 to 20, the second June 22 — resulted in many downed and damaged trees, as well as some standing water and flooding throughout town.

“The damage from the first storm was mostly from wind, the second brought mainly water issues,” said George Franco, director of public services.

About 25 trees on village property were lost, and an untold number on private property also were lost, Finnell said.

Officials said the amount of brush left curbside by residents was testimony enough to the storms’ wrath.

“It has taken us the last 10 days to make our first pass through the village, and we hope to be done with that by the Independence Holiday weekend,” Finnell said.

A second pass through town is expected next week, officials said.

Crews are targeting broken limbs posing a safety threat.

“Any hanging tree limb needs to be removed because of the danger involved. There is too much of a target area beneath the trees on public property,” Finnell said.

Officials said the heaviest damage from the first storm occurred on the south side of Hinsdale between County Line Road and Stough Street south of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks. The second storm wreaked havoc throughout town.

One of the biggest problems was due to branches and other debris caused by the first storm eventually clogged catch basins on village streets following the second storm, Franco said.

“Especially in low-lying areas of town, like Eighth Street, this caused some standing water because the debris flowed down to those low areas,” Franco said.

Village Manager David Cook said the first storm also resulted in a power outage to the village’s water pumping facility on Symonds Drive.

“The water plant, which pumps water to the hospital, businesses and homes here in town, was without power for about 24 hours,” Cook said. “ComEd was very busy restoring power to their first line of what they consider top priorities related to public safety, like fire departments and police departments.

“That is understandable, but it got a little frustrating when it took them until 3 p.m. Saturday — 24 hours later — to restore power to our water plant and public services garage,” Cook said.

The water plant was without power momentarily before a backup generator was put into place, Franco said.

“We were naturally concerned because, in the event that generator went out, we would have had to bring in a secondary trailer generator and, perhaps, lose the capacity to pump water to all of our users,” he said.

One of those customers is Adventist Hinsdale Hospital.

“Last I heard, hospitals need water, too,” said Cook.

Hospital officials said it never was in jeopardy of losing electrical power or water service during the power outage caused by heavy thunderstorms last week, according to spokeswoman Julie Busch.

Franco said, as of Tuesday, about 85 hours of overtime were used during the cleanup.

Village President Tom Cauley recognized the efforts of public service crews at a Village Board meeting Monday, June 28.

“They did such a good job I don’t think I got one call of complaint from residents,” Cauley said.

Franco said public services received in excess of 700 calls.

“What I learned from this whole thing is I need to change my telephone number,” Franco joked. “But I think we also learned that although we put a lot of information out on our website about the clean up efforts, we need to somehow get the word out so residents are aware of what we are doing. Not everyone goes to our website.”