Branch managers – Crews work hard to removed downed trees and branches

Winthrop Public Works crews were out in force beginning Sunday night and working through the day Tuesday, after a late afternoon thunder, lightning and wind storm swept through the area knocking down trees and tree branches, damaging property and creating a mess across town streets and parks.

“It was a kind of hit or miss storm, where it didn’t seem that any one area of town got hot particularly hard, but most areas did have some tree damage, be it on private property or in public spaces,” explained Public Works Director Dave Hickey. “The funny thing is that for a relatively short storm, we wound up with a solid two or three days of work to do all over town.”

Hickey did say that for the most part the Highlands area of town and Point Shirley seemed to escape with the least amount of tree damage, but overall nearly every part of town did see some fallen trees and downed tree limbs.

“Probably 70 percent of the mess and damage we (were) seeing was caused by tree limbs, small branches, but a good 30npercent was caused by large tree limbs and some sizeable trees that couldn’t handle the gusts.”

According to Hickey, most of the real property damage seems to have been done to private property, where home and business owners will be forced to pay for tree removal and file insurance claims to repair damages. However, there were a number of areas where fallen trees and downed tree limbs blocked streets and damages motor vehicles parked on public streets.

Large trees and large tree limbs were reported down on Governor’s Park, Almont Street, Pleasant Street, River Road and on the Town Hall lawn in public places. Meanwhile on private property the Winthrop Golf Club and a homeowner at Cross and Franklin streets were just two examples of large trees creating a mess and causing damage on private property.

“We actually got out and started cleaning up the worst areas on Sunday starting around 4:30 in the afternoon and going until about 1 a.m.,” said Hickey. “Then we picked it up again on Monday morning and (continued through the day Tuesday).”