Residents pick up pieces after storm

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By ZACH PLUHACEK / Lincoln Journal Star

Jim Brewer was scared of the giant tree branch in his front yard after Monday evening’s storm.

The thing was dangling from one of his five pin oaks by a sliver of wood, the other end resting on the roof of his house — right above his bedroom.

If it broke free, he was sure it would come crashing through his ceiling in the middle of the night.

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Jacob Loos surveys the damage to his home at 824 Garfield after a storm that blew through Lincoln Monday night toppled a large oak tree that damaged his home and car. "We were standing there not four or five minutes before it happened," Loos said. (Eric Gregory)

So he called the police department’s nonemergency number.

No luck.

The person who answered said because the tree was on his property, there wasn’t much the city could do to help. Call the Parks and Recreation Department, he was told.  Parks and Rec doesn’t have a 24-hour public number.

“There must have been a miscommunication somewhere,” Parks and Rec Director Lynn Johnson said Tuesday.

Both his office and the Public Works Department had crews on the streets as early as 7 Monday night, he said. And typically, anyone who calls LPD’s nonemergency number should be helped, Johnson said.

“I was just really, really ticked that they didn’t send anybody out and just look at it and give me some advice,” Brewer said.

Johnson and Lancaster County Emergency Management Coordinator Doug Ahlberg said Brewer did the right thing.

A person worried about his or her safety should call 911, Ahlberg said.

Someone with structural damage, or, say, part of a tree on the roof, Johnson said, should call LPD’s nonemergency number.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue responds to the most blatant safety concerns, like fallen power lines and fire alarms.

“Every fire truck, every fire engine in the city of Lincoln was tied up on calls at one point in time (Monday night),” Ahlberg said. “You have to prioritize what you’re doing when you have situations like that.”

Other situations, like Brewer’s, are handled by Parks and Rec or Public Works.

Those offices were busy after the storm that blew through Lincoln Monday night. Officials didn’t even have a rough estimate of how many trees and branches were downed, and one person answering the Parks and Rec community forest number took 144 calls before 2 p.m. Tuesday.

Johnson asked that people help pick up smaller debris in the streets so his workers can focus on more serious road blocks and hazards.

It’s up to property owners to handle their own land if they aren’t in danger.

Ahlberg recommends pulling out that insurance card first thing.

Leone and Don Dieter were doing just that Tuesday afternoon, as they waited to move the barn that flipped over in their backyard at 97th and West O streets.

Don Dieter saw the 12-by-24-foot barn tilting as he went to the basement Monday night. The next morning it was upside-down, 15 feet from the pile of hay it was covering before the storm.

On Tuesday, the Dieters were moving the hay into another barn to keep it out of the weather, but they were leaving the barn the way it was.

“We’ve been here 25 years and we’ve never had this kind of damage,” Leone Dieter said.

The city has resources for people in need, Ahlberg said, but everyone needs to exercise restraint so things run as smoothly as possible.

“Generally speaking, that’s a decision that’s made by the property owner,” he said. “When I got home this morning at 2 o’ clock, I had to go out and pick things up off of my yard.”

City officials recommend cutting up and securing smaller debris so refuse haulers can pick it up. Larger branches and trees should be taken to a disposal site at 5101 N. 48th St.

“I drove around the city earlier today to kind of get a sense of the kind of tree damage that is out there,” Johnson said. “I didn’t see enough damage to warrant opening up some public disposal sites.”

As for Jim Brewer, he ended up on his roof about 10 p.m. Monday, shining a big light for a tree remover he managed to reach.

On Tuesday, the front yard of his house on South 45th Street looked like a jungle of branches, including the nearly two-foot in diameter one that had been hanging over his roof.

Reach Zach Pluhacek at 473-7395 or zpluhacek@journalstar.com.