Village Officials Estimate Storm Damage at $300,000

The is still in the process of assessing the amount of damage and the costs incurred related to the that hit earlier in July, but costs associated with the storm could reach $300,000.

Public Works employees have been working to clear debris ever since the storm hit and the storm taxed the village’s resources, according to Glen Ellyn officials.

While the village did receive a thank you note from one grateful resident for the hard work public works employees put in to clean up after the storm, one resident concerned about slow response spoke out at the Village Board meeting Monday night.

The resident said that though she never called about having branches and tree limbs removed from her parkway, she anticipated that removal would happen sooner than it did. She said that it took 19 days before the tree limbs were picked up.

Initially, the village hired a contractor to help with the emergency removal of trees and branches left in the wake of the storm, said Julius Hansen, director of public works. But, it was determined that it wasn’t cost effective for the village to continue using the services of the contractor, so public works employees continued the work. 

Hansen said the cost to complete all the work using a contractor would have cost the village about $150,000. Roughly 70 trees were damaged in the storm.

“If we had a contractor do it, sure we could have done that and we would have been done about 10 days sooner, but brush being removed is not an emergency situation,” he said. “I would hate to have a contractor do that and all we have left to show for it are a bunch of woods chips.” 

And, a lot of wood chips were left in the wake of the storm. Hansen said that the village removed roughly 10,000 cubic yards of brush, which is a record for Glen Ellyn. “It was a very unusual situation,” he said.

“I understand people have complained, but hopefully people understand the severity of the storm,” Hansen said. “We took pride in picking up everything that was put out by residents.”

And, in this instance, the public works employees even collected trees that were damaged on private property, something that is not normally done, he said. 

Village Manager Mark Franz said the collection of private trees—unless they were small—would be a one-time event and would not be done in future storms. Most communities will not remove trees that are damaged on private property. 

“This has been a storm that taxed our resources and we did our best to keep up with it,” he said.

In other matters: 

• The village approved its consent agenda, which included a motion allowing Glen Ellyn to place a referenda question on the ballot asking voters whether the community should have the authority to arrange for the supply of electricity to residents and small businesses. Another provision of the measure was to also allow the city to contract with Northern Illinois Municipal Electric Cooperative for consulting services in regard to the electric aggregation program. 

• The village also approved ordinances designating the Glen Ellyn Horse Trough and a property at 369 N. Main St. as local landmarks.