Across Dallas, assembling walls of downed tree debris has become a part-time job.
“The whole family, we’ve been cleaning up for the entire time,” said Jill Powdermaker.
Like many of her neighbors in East Dallas, a lingering mess is just the latest frustration after last Tuesday morning’s storms when she waited four days for her power to be restored.
“Our area, particularly, was very hard hit. We were pretty much the last ones to get help because I think that they had a lot of debris that they had to move,” she said.
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Now, as the city shifts from response to recovery, the waiting game begins again.
“The reality is that there was a lot of debris generated from this storm,” said Director of Emergency Management Travis Houston.
Houston said nearly every part of the city was impacted.
Last week, like in the wake of the 2019 tornado, the city established a debris removal incident management team. The team used data to prioritize where to send crews as it raced to help Oncor get the lights back on.
“A lot of it came from where we are getting 311 calls, 911 calls, establishing a heat map and putting it up on a grid and then dispatching crews based on that grid,” he said.
It’s a process that ran through the weekend, hampered by additional storms.
Now, the city is focused on working with FEMA, partnering with nonprofits to provide food for those who had to empty their fridges, and clearing city streets.
It’s a process Houston said could take at least a month.
Just like they did last week, Powdermaker said her family is making due.
“We’ve definitely had to wait for things to be picked up before, but it’s a lot. We know it’s going to be a lot this time,” she said.
Wednesday, officials announced that the Biden Administration added Dallas County to a major disaster declaration allowing impacted residents to apply for federal disaster aid. For more information or resources, visit the Office of Emergency Management's website.
