Vinton's windstorm cleanup will take years

Like most days the past three weeks, Jeff Schadle and Chad Newton were out on the streets of Vinton one recent morning with a bucket truck,  chain saws, and other tree-trimming tools.

"We're just going around taking out hangers and widowmakers," explained Schadle, Vinton's city arborist. "Trying to make the right-of-way safe, so people can walk down the sidewalks."

Schadle expects it will be years before the last traces of thousands of trees uprooted, toppled, splintered, or otherwise damaged by hurricane-force winds that swept the city early July 11 are removed.

"Over five years, we'll be taking trees down that one storm damaged," predicted Schadle, who estimates 75 percent of the city's trees were lost.

Helped by the Iowa Department of Transportation, it took city crews three days to open single-lane access to every block in town. It took another two weeks to completely clear the streets of downed trees.

"Sixteen hours on, eight hours off for a number of weeks," said Mayor John Watson.

It took about 10 days for Vinton Municipal Electric Utility,  helped by crews from other utilities, to restore power to the last of its 2,600 customers, all of whom lost service.

Winds damaged dozens of homes, several so badly they'll be demolished rather than rebuilt. Dozens more farm and commercial buildings - sheds, garages, grain bins - were wrecked, along with two hangars at Vinton's airport.

Watson knows of five homes that will be demolished. He doubts the damage to private property can ever be accurately estimated, because much of it - replacing half a roof here, a set of rain gutters there - won't require a building permit.

But the loss of hundreds of mature shade trees, a century and more old, is the windstorm's mark on Vinton that will linger for decades. City Coordinator Andy Lent tells of driving down a once-familiar street last week.

"I had to stop and say, 'What street are we on?' because it looked so different," Lent said. "It changed the whole landscape."

Hundreds of downed trees remain on private property in Vinton, some still resting atop roofs where they fell. Residents have until Aug. 12 to move them curbside for city crews to collect.

Many more trees still stand but are so damaged they'll have to come down. Then there are the "hangers and widow-makers" Schadle's searching for - heavy, detached limbs hung up on nearby branches, ready to fall on the unwary. Many are hidden in dense foliage and are hard to spot and ticklish to remove.

The wind pummeled the campus of the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School, on higher ground on the west end of town. It took the heavy copper roof off the 1865 Old Main building and dropped it about two city blocks away. On top of Charles Dixon's mobile home.

Awakened by the approaching storm, Dixon had stepped onto the front porch of his rented mobile home and was struggling with a window that had a broken crank mechanism.

"It was just barely sprinkling, so I thought I'd better come out and close the window," said Dixon, 64. "All of a sudden, I couldn't see the trailer. That's all I remember. If I'd been in there in the bed, I wouldn't have made it. That roof just fell right in on it."

Dixon, who wasn't seriously hurt, is living in the back of his garage, where he repairs cars and lawn mowers. He's repaired the bathroom in the mobile home - its roof tattered, its walls bowed out from the impact of Old Main's roof - while he waits for his landlord's decision.

The Braille School sustained $4 million to $6 million in damage, said Patrick Clancy, its superintendent/administrator. A temporary roof has been installed to protect the building while a permanent solution is planned.

"There's damage, really, to every building on campus," said Clancy.

The final class in the Braille School's residential program graduated just this spring. About 30 people work there now, providing programs and support for 525 blind children statewide who now attend their local schools.

"Given the damage, it's certainly the opportunity to look to the future of the campus," said Clancy.

Latest estimates at the campus alone are nearly enough to push the storm's damage to public property beyond the $4.7 million initial assessment by Benton County Emergency Management Coordinator Scott Hansen.

Gov. Branstad has requested a White House disaster declaration, which would make local governments' costs eligible for reimbursement by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Lent estimated Vinton's total cost may come to about $600,000, mostly for debris removal but also including a new roof for the city-owned skate center and replacement of two airport hangars.

Rick Ohrt,  general manager of the city's electrical utility, gave a rough estimate of $1 million for overtime and replacement of poles and transformers.

"It's been one day after another," said Dixon as he went to work on a garden tractor in front of his temporary garage home. "Just slowly but surely."