By Nick Greenfield and Karyn Pugliese
In the wake of January’s ice storm, a calm atmosphere has settled over Centretown. Although residents have begun to put the pieces of their lives back together, city officials can only guess at the long-term damage to the area’s trees.
Among the unenviable tasks for residents and city workers is the cleaning up of the broken limbs that blanket the community.
Oldrich Vosikovski spent most of Saturday afternoon cleaning up what is left of the trees on his property. A cedar tree bent over in submission is a stark metaphor for the damage the storm has caused in the community.
“It may come back,” the Lewis Street resident says optimistically. “Cedars are soft and flexible.”
For Vosikovski and city workers, the job of cleaning up is a slow and often painful reminder of the long-term effects of the ice storm.
“We’ve never had anything like this before,” says Ray Yantha, the manager of parks, trees and sewer operations for the City of Ottawa. “It’s hard to say, but I’d guess that close to 75 per cent of the trees (in the city) have been damaged.”
Yantha estimates that 50 per cent of those trees would require mending.
Thanks to the help of tree crews from across Ontario, Yantha says the cleanup is going better than they had originally planned.
“At this point we have cleared up everything from the ground. Now we need to get all of the hangers (broken limbs in trees).”
Yantha says the cleanup of the broken limbs is the immediate priority, and a long-term assessment of the city’s trees will be the next step.
“We’ll do a sweep of the city and look at the trees, but there are a lot that don’t stand a chance,” he says. “Two or three years will tell us what should stay and what should go.”
For Mayor Jim Watson a recent tour of Centretown revealed the devastation of the storm.
“I’ve toured around a number of areas in Centretown where you see the damage to the trees and you hope it’s not going to be permanent … but it’s a pretty pessimistic view really; seeing so many trees with the branches down,” he says. “So really, it’s a question of trying to save them.”
Centretown Coun. Elisabeth Arnold agrees with Watson and says the “environmental equation” cannot be ignored.
“The estimate is that 40,000 trees have been affected…that is really terrible.”
She says the rebuilding of the area’s flora is going to be a long-term endeavor and a true test of everyone’s patience.
And while city workers will spend the next few weeks cleaning up the remaining tree branches in Centretown, Oldrich Vosikovski will attend to the trees on his property.
An enormous maple tree looms over Vosikovski as he continues to work on his ailing cedar. Judging by the size of the maple tree it is one of the oldest on his street. Six major limbs were lost to the storm, their wounds clearly visible.
And though the emotional toll of the ice storm will undoubtedly fade in the coming weeks, the physical scars in Centretown will remain visible for years to come.