Hanging Limbs and Damaged Trees are Being Removed in Missoula

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - Since Missoula’s unforgettable July 24 wind event that caused millions of dollars in damage, we’ve been living with severely damaged boulevard trees with hanging limbs.

On Tuesday, FEMA crews will begin remediation and removal work in Missoula.

I spoke with Marie Ducharme, Urban Forestry Program Specialist about the work being funded by a recently received FEMA grant.

“We are finally getting everything going, and we have FEMA contractors in town,” began Ducharme. “They will be starting the hangar removing and pulling contract. So that's on approximately 5,200 City of Missoula trees. They will be pulling broken limbs and branches that are hung up. Many of them have a yellow tag on them that say pruning. They aren't doing any structural pruning. They are just pulling hangers and the broken branches.”

FEMA to Remove Hanging Branches and Some Urban Trees

Ducharme said some trees will also be fully removed.

“We are also going to see the contractor start on the removal contracts, hopefully this week as well,” she said. “That'll be approximately 430 trees that will be removed because they were just so badly damaged.”

Ducharme laid fears to rest that too many trees are being removed.

All the Damaged Trees Have Been Clearly Marked for Removal

“All of the trees that have been marked for removal have been visited by either myself or the urban forester, and we verified that they do meet the FEMA removal requirements,” she said. “That means that the tree has been so structurally damaged or lost so much of its canopy that it's just not going to survive the three next three to five years is the timeframe that FEMA puts on that.”

Ducharme laid out the beginning of the tree removal schedule.

READ MORE: Missoula Still Has Thousands of Trees That Need Treating

Watch for 'No Parking' Signs in FEMA Removal Areas

“I believe they're going to be starting in Franklin to the Fort neighborhood, and they will be posting no parking signs 24 hours ahead of their work as much as they can,” she said. “So if people could just please be really aware and not park in those areas, because towing is going to unfortunately have to be enforced just so we can get this work completed. Also we are asking people to be patient with us because it is going to be noisy. It's a lot of work that's going to happen in a very short amount of time.”

Click here to find out more about Missoula’s Urban Forestry Program.