Summerside's Dorian cleanup efforts winding down

Beginning Tuesday, municipal public works crews in Summerside will startthe final stage of branchand treepickup following post-tropical storm Dorian. Residents are asked to have all of their remaining debris curbside as soon as possible to not miss collection in their area.

"It's been a monster-sized job for our municipal crews, both from the electrical side and municipal services side and the community services side," said J.P.Desrosiers, the city's director of community services.

"Our municipal crews have been going for multiple weeks now doing curbside pickups for residents."

It has been more than seven weeks since Dorian brought heavy rain and wind to P.E.I., but the amount of debris caused by the storm has had many crewsworking non-stop.

Picking up all the pieces hasn't been an easy undertaking.

Weighing options

Desrosiers said it has been a big task for the city.

"Our municipality has done a very good job in terms of servicing residents and looking after their needs following the storm, getting power restored and getting the city cleaned up and back to normal," he said.

"It's been a learning experience from our preparedness standpoint, our cleanup standpoint, but one we hopefully don't have to see very often, that's for sure."

As residents and municipal workers continue finish chippingaway at the piles, the city is still trying to figure out what to do with an enormous football field-sized mountain of tree and branch debris at the itstemporary site off Compton Road.

Back to normal

"We're still weighing our options on the best potential for the cleanup whether it's burningthe debris in a controlled burn mindset, or if we're going to move towards chipping it," Desrosiers said.

"We're not going to rush. We're going to try and figure out the most environmentally-friendly and the most sort of feasible way to deal with it."

The last day to register for Tuesday and Wednesday's curbside pick-up is Monday by 4 p.m.

The debris drop-off site on Compton Road will permanently close Oct. 31.

"As challenging as the storm was and it was a test on our resources, we were pleased to see how quickly things have come around and Summerside is certainly gettingback to normal."

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