Monroe County resident Denise Valkyrie's roof is still damaged from the storm that hit Bloomington in June.
(Devan Ridgway)
Denise Valkyrie still has a hole in her roof from the storm that hit Bloomington in June. Numerous trees went down, and nearly 74,000 people in Monroe County had lost power. Valkyrie didn’t have electricity for a week after a power line fell in her neighborhood.
Her insurance agent came out the day after the storm.
“He booked us a hotel room right away, which was great,” she said.
Monroe County resident Denise Valkyrie said some people in her neighborhood still have tarps on their roofs because they haven't been able to repair the damage the June storm left. (Devan Ridgway)
Valkyrie didn’t go back home until her power was restored. But she’s been living with a hole in her roof ever since.
“The reason my roof hasn't been fixed yet is because the contractors are so busy [what] I call putting out fires — it’s not really fire, nothing's on fire — but they're so busy repairing damage that they had to triage it,” she said. “You know, where is it that people can't live? Where is it that people are in danger of a building collapsing?”
The City Monroe County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) just last month finished cleaning up excess debris from the June storm.
Her roof will finally be repaired this week, but it’ll cost $12,000, an expense shared in part by insurance. It cost her $3,500 alone to remove the tree in stages.
The June storm completely upturned one of the trees in Valkyrie's yard. It cost $3,500 to remove it. (Courtesy, Denise Valkyrie)
“The way it fell, somebody had come in and just started cutting on it, it would have fallen more into the house. So we had to have it done in little bits and pieces,” she said. “I still have a completely demolished shed. It's piled nicely in my yard.”
Valkyrie had to take $4,000 out of her retirement fund to help pay for the costs of clearing the tree debris out of her yard. She’ll probably have to take out another $4,000. She hopes she will get reimbursed.
“I'm praying that the insurance will [reimburse me],” she said. “They're not wanting to cover my fence because my fence wasn't installed with regular posts, they're kind of temporary posts. So we're having a hard time with that one, but that's going to be another $11,000.”
Valkyrie, president of the Broadview Neighborhood Association, said the entire neighborhood suffered extensive damage. Neighbors worked together to help clear debris from their yards.
Valkyrie still has all the chopped up wood from the tree that fell in her yard. Her fence is also still damaged. (Devan Ridgway)
One of her neighbors owns a food truck.
“He opened up his truck one day for everybody because he knew that we had all lost our food in our refrigerators and freezers, and so he fed everybody dinner one day,” she said.
While Valkyrie just finished clearing debris from her yard, others around the neighborhood still have visible damage. Some can’t afford to hire a contractor to clean it up.
“I've got neighbors all over the neighborhood that still have tarps on their roof, waiting for the contractors to be able to come in and get it taken care of,” she said.
While many in the neighborhood did submit requests for the City of Bloomington to pick up the debris, the challenge was moving the debris from their yards to the curb. Only debris left curbside was collected.
“It's the stuff that's in people's yards that they can't get to the road, the stuff that weighs tons that they can't get out,” she said. “Everything looks like it's been finally cleared from the roadways and from the easements here in the neighborhood, it's just the yards themselves.”
The City and Monroe County Emergency Management Agency are not taking any new requests to collect debris. The few they have left were filed before the end of July, when they stopped taking requests.
“We still have a few outstanding addresses that were missed,” said Adam Wason, director of the City’s public works department.
Adam Wason, director of the City’s public works department, said his department is still working on repairing some damage from the storm. (Isabella Vesperini)
While there are still some ongoing expenses, Wason said the City has spent about $2.1 million repairing damage from the storm. About $1 million is going toward repairing an awning at the Street Division.
“We had an awning at the street division [where] we parked all of our snowplows and dump trucks underneath, that was damaged during that big weather event,” he said. “We're still working on getting that demolished and final costs on replacement for that.”
The City paid about $500,000 to contractors to help with debris cleanup. About $430,000 went to Williams Tree Company in Martinsville to collect debris, and around $50,000 went to Bluestone Tree to grind all the debris.
“I think we'll be starting some conversations with our city council on an additional appropriation to cover those costs that were just unexpected,” he said.
Wason said the City spent about $100,000 on materials such as gravel and trees.
“Replanting for some of these trees will happen this fall, but that'll be something that happens over time,” he said.
About $170,000 was spent in labor costs for the extra hours staff had to work to clean up debris. Another $200,000 was spent on equipment. Wason said he hopes either the state department of homeland security or the Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse that cost.
“If you think of it from a wear-and-tear perspective, had the storm not occurred, those chainsaws would last longer,” he said. “Had the storm not occurred, we wouldn't have put those many hours on the dump trucks, on the pieces of equipment.”
Any excess debris still left in wooded areas will not be removed.
“Their (parks department’s) main efforts were to make sure that all the trails through the park would be cleared, any playgrounds, any areas where the recreation activities actually occur,” Wason said.
Justin Baker, deputy director of Monroe County Emergency Management, said the county council approved up to $500,000 for their department to spend solely hiring one main contractor and a subcontractor to help clear debris. They could not spend the money on any extra hours staff had to work during debris cleanup.
