Minneapolis and St. Paul aim to clear all storm debris in the coming weeks

Two storms downed scores of trees across the Twin Cities last week, creating a significant amount of cleanup work for both Minneapolis and St. Paul. A week after the storms, where do both cities stand with downed tree removal and other remaining work? Here’s what they told us:

There are likely fewer than 80 fully or partially downed trees left in Minneapolis, said Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board spokeswoman Robin Smothers, who added that the bulk of the damage was in the north, south and southwest parts of the city.

There are no reports of fully blocked streets left, but there still are some partly blocked streets and blocked parking lanes and sidewalks, Smothers noted on Tuesday. The Park Board’s forestry department hopes to clear the 470 remaining storm-related work orders — which range from small debris pick-up service to downed limb and tree removal — by the end of this week. The Park Board, which is a semi-autonomous governing body of the city of Minneapolis, hopes to have all debris pick-up requests cleared by the end of next week if no new storms arrive.

There were 1,152 work orders in Minneapolis due to the storms on Aug. 26 and 29.

Initial estimates indicated that more than 2,000 trees were damaged or knocked down because of the storms last week, according to St. Paul spokesperson Clare Cloyd.

The hardest-hit areas included the Como Park, North End and East Side neighborhoods, Cloyd said. All streets that were completely blocked have been cleared since the storms.

On Wednesday, city crews finished clearing all trees that were partly blocking streets, Cloyd said.

It will likely take the city several weeks to deal with the remaining downed trees, brush piles and hanging branches that are not blocking streets, Cloyd said. St. Paul would then focus on removing damaged trees that are still standing.