Summerside's Dorian cleanup efforts winding down

If you haven't dropped off your post-Dorian yard and tree debris in Summerside, the advice from the city is to do it soon.

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

Tom Steepe · CBC News · Posted: Oct 28, 2019 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 28, 2019

Residents in Summerside will have one final chance to place any yard debris at the curb this week for pickup or drop it off at the city's site off Compton Road. (Tom Steepe/CBC)

Beginning Tuesday, municipal public works crews in Summerside will start the final stage of branch and tree pickup 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 crews working non-stop.

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

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Weighing options

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

Crews have been working non-stop since Dorian to remove trees, branches and waste from yards and streets. (Tom Steepe/CBC)

"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 chipping away 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 its temporary site off Compton Road.

Back to normal

"We're still weighing our options on the best potential for the cleanup whether it's burning the 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 city says it's going to try and figure out the most environmentally-friendly and feasible way to deal with the football field-sized mountain of debris at its temporary site. (Tom Steepe/CBC)

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 getting back to normal."