Communities coping with cleanup of ice storm debris

(Update)

The power is back on for all areas affected by the ice storm. But the clean up could continue for months.

It took twelve days for the power to come back on in some places. But with branches still down all across the province, residents are far from being out of the woods. The clean up will be long, and now the question is, how much will this all cost?

With power back on for the nearly 600,000 Ontario households who were once in the dark, it may seem like the ice storm is behind us. But it’s legacy will be lasting.

Mike McNamara is with the City of Hamilton: “We’re gonna be 2 months into this for clean up.”

Monday, 10 Hamilton city crews were out as they continue to chip away at the damage.

“So the name of the game right now is preventative maintenance. They have to take all of the remaining branches, bring them down to the ground and then, they go right in the wood chipper.”

City workers have been grinding away almost non-stop since the storm. Once they are able to clear all of the hanging branches, crews will then deal with what has already fallen. And with work expected to continue well into February, there is no idea what this will cost.

Hamilton Mayor Bob Bratina: “The problem for the city is that we have to provide those services as needed and then we deal with the aftermath, and that accounting is going to be a difficult process for us.”

Mayor Bratina says money has been set aside, but they don’t yet know if cleanup costs will exceed those reserves. Ward 4 Councillor Sam Merulla plans to put forward a motion that will ask for relief from the province regardless: “This is an abnormal type of storm, so this was not budgeted, we can be or potentially be in a deficit situation because of this and the only place we can go is the taxpayer.”

There is funding available under the Ontario Disaster Relief Assistance Program. Requests must be made within 14 days. The Mayor says that if they go to the province, they need to ask for a specific amount and they are still a week to 10 days away from having any accurate numbers.

The Mayor said that this is a good opportunity for residents to take stock of how ready they are in the event of a future storm.