Friday, January 26, 2007

CITY TO REMOVE STORM DEBRIS

City officials on Friday announced that Springfield "will be picking up debris from private homes and businesses." The news from Louise Whall, the city's public-information boss:
(The) schedule will be announced in advance to give property owners at least one week’s notice of pick-up in their area. The debris removal contract is expected to be awarded by late next week and announcement of the first pick-up schedules will begin soon after that.
Tell that to the next person who offers to remove the debris for the low, low price of $675.

Other storm strays:

•It's about a half-hour wait to dump debris at the landfill. The landfill drop site opens at 7 a.m. Saturday and will be open until 4 p.m. Sunday is a day of landfill rest.

•Property owners have to keep the sidewalk and streets clear. It's the law.
"However," Whall said, "the City is NOT issuing tickets for this code violation because of current circumstances and does not have plans to do so except as a last-resort measure to ensure public safety. It will be announced if it comes to that, but the City believes that with public education and information, the majority of residents will try to store debris properly without obstructing streets or sidewalks."

•For what it's worth, here's our YouTube video of Ice Storm 2007.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The recent ice storm has left many people wondering what will be done to prevent such a disaster from happening again. Many people, such as city council candidate Steven Reed www.reedforcouncil.com have suggested that CU bury the power lines. City Utilities claims that the cost of burying the lines would be 1.5 billion dollars but they do not cite who did the study. In a Virginia SCC study, the cost of burial was less than 250,000 per mile. At this rate, Springfield would need to have 600,000 miles of utility lines. We do not.

Why is City Utilities being so secretive about their information? Why are they being so resistant to a proposal that would create jobs, provide added security to our power grid, and protect businesses and the public from lost revenue and personal goods? Also, it is misleading to say that we would be paying for this all at once. It would be done over a period of years.

Anything worth doing is going to be difficult, that is how the world works. Think of how different America would be if we never built highways because they “cost too much.”


Lucas Cain

Springfield, MO 65802

Lucas1@missouristate.edu

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed the video, a nice concise view of the experience. A musical credit would have been appreciated, it was a nice choice.

Ron Davis said...

Ole:

Thanks, and good point. The music is "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" from Blind Willie Johnson.