UPDATE: San Francisco Public Works Crews Scramble to Clean Up After Historic Storm
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX) -- Public Work crews in San Francisco were working hard Monday to respond to the hundreds of calls they've received regarding downed trees from Sunday's storm.
SFDPW officials said there were more than 700 reports of downed trees across the city, reminders of a historic storm that plowed into the Bay Area over the weekend.
Public Works spent the day cutting down branches and removing debris on streets.
"Our crews are working on clean up to try to get the city looking back in shape," said San Francisco Public Works spokesperson Rachel Gordon.
The damage is much more extensive than the team usually cleans up. It's the highest number of downed trees they've seen in years.
Crew members went from one neighborhood to the next, in some cases they were cleaning up 20 trees in one spot. It's unlike anything some of them have ever experienced.
"My first year actually seeing all of this. Busy week. Not day; week," said Francisco Danesca with Terra Landscape.
It's just the start of a long process to clear all the debris. Neighbors next to one larger downed tree said it made them stop and stare.
Bonnie Jones has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years.
"Oh I'm excited. This is great. We're out walking, counting the trees that are down," said Jones.
She said damage like this can be seen block after block as she walks around the area.
"This is huge! It's huge. And I don't know why I'm so excited and smiling, but it's just to get out of the house. What a storm, huh?" Jones enthused.
While public works and other agencies say they were prepared for the storm and staffed their crews as best as they could, they still didn't have enough workers and will need more time to reach every spot in the city.
"We've done this before, this is our job taking care of the city's street trees so we're prepared in that sense but we can't do everything at once but we will take care of the high priority cases first," said Gordon.
SFDPW asked San Francisco residents to call 311 to report any larger downed trees, but asked that people clean up any smaller debris and branches they could manage to fit into their green compost bins themselves.
