After the ice melted away last week, local residents were left with one big mess.
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Gail Fulbright walks among the debris at the Thomson-McDuffie Recycling Center.
Jason B. Smith
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Broken trees and limbs littered McDuffie County streets and yards shortly after temperatures rose mid-week, but thanks to city and county work crews, along with help from some private tree removal companies, the visible effects of the recent winter storm were only temporary.
County Road Department Director Chris Pelly said that his crews worked around the clock cleaning up debris along roads.
"The ones that are in the right of way that we have cut out of the roads and pushed out of the roads, those are the ones we've been picking up. The ones on private property, those belong to the homeowner," he said. "I would say we probably pushed a good 100 trees out of the road. We were mighty busy from about 4 a.m. Monday morning to late Tuesday."
Of the trees that the road department took responsibility for, there are several disposal options available. They can be taken to the county landfill, disposed of with a grinder, or Mr. Pelly suggested he was thinking about drying out the trees and then burning them in a pipe yard.
Solid Waste Manager Don Clauson said his landfill could easily take on the large load of debris.
"It shouldn't cause me too many problems. Out here we put them in an inert landfill, and we'll just work them in," he said.
Lawson Fulbright, owner of Thomson's Extreme Tree and Stump Removal, said last week was an extremely busy one for his business.
"It has been a big boost for us," he said of the weather. "We've got more than I can handle right now."
Mr. Fulbright said that pine trees proved to be the most likely trees to break due to ice.
"Pines are the worst. Most of the time oaks will handle the ice. What the problem is, with pine trees, they have needles that hold the water. When the water freezes, that's what causes the weight which breaks all of these limbs. With oak trees, they lose their leaves this time of the year, so they don't have as much to hold the water."
He also said an ice storm is a good way for folks to identify if they have any trees on their property that they feel should come down.
"After they've seen what an ice storm like this can do, it scares them. They usually say, 'I'm not going to go through this again.'"
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Moses McGahee (standing in truck) and Leon McGahee dump debris collected from their yard.
Jason B. Smith
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Anthony Duckworth uses a piece of heavy equipment to move debris around the recycling center.
Jason B. Smith
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