MUSKOGEE, Okla. — More than three weeks after a powerful wind storm ripped through Green Country, one community is still cleaning up. The city of Muskogee declared an emergency opening up funding for curbside debris pickup.
“To be perfectly honest, I slept through it,” said Linda Emison.
Linda Emison says the Father’s Day storm didn’t keep her up, but the damage left behind is evident in her neighborhood.
“Some of the wind that we’ve had since has blown it into the road itself so you kind of had to watch when you were driving,” said Emison.
She’s grateful the city hired Custom Tree Care to clean it all up. Their crews rolled through the west side of Muskogee on Tuesday and will be picking up debris for the next few weeks.
“During the windstorm, we had several trees down,” said Avery Rigney.
Avery Rigney is the assistant public works director for the city of Muskogee. He says their crews responded to 47 calls for debris on the road and had it picked up in days. The storm, though, cut off power to hundreds of families.
“Here in the neighborhood, the real damage was no electricity,” said Emison.
Rigney says most of the debris they’re seeing now, is leftover from OG&E.
“We did have contractors come in from the power company to cut debris off of storm lines and during that process they left it in resident’s yard and it becomes their responsibility per OG&E policy,” said Rigney. “It overwhelmed a lot of citizens to have that responsibility dropped in their lap in such a short notice.”
The emergency declaration opened up funding to pay for the curbside pickup, taking the physical and financial burden off of Muskogee families.
“Our counsel took an aggressive position to get it cleaned up ourselves,” said Rigney.
If you need help moving debris curbside, you can call Public Works at 918-684-6333.
There’s also a temporary drop off site for brush and limb debris. It’s open from 7am-7pm at 40th and Denver (near Hatbox Field) through Friday, July 14th.
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