Politics & Government
Residents, City Come Together to Clean Up St. Louis Park After Storm
St. Louis Park was one of the hardest hit cities in Friday's storm—by Monday evening, bearing the burden of almost a third of the metro area's power outages
Curbside debris pick-up begins today in St. Louis Park, one of the hardest hit cities in Friday night’s thunderstorm. As of Monday night, about 7,000 residents were still without power, comprising nearly a third of all Xcel customers suffering from outages.
City council members patted themselves on the back at their Monday meeting for the St. Louis Park’s swift response to the storm, noting how neighboring cities such as Edina haven’t been offering the same level of free debris cleanup. (Instructions for residents on how to prepare their debris for city workers is available on the St. Louis Park website. A free drop-off site is also open through July 7.)
City manager Tom Harmening said the city offers free citywide cleanup “when there’s significant damage,” such as during the straight-line winds about 15 years ago.
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“That’s ridiculous” to leave major storm cleanup to residents, he said.
Mayor Jeff Jacobs said that St. Louis Park’s aging, aboveground power lines bear much responsibility for the lengthy power outages. He said the city asked Xcel to bury power lines underground in the mid-1980s, but was told it would be too costly.
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“None of this would have happened,” Jacobs said. “It is so shortsighted it shocks the consciousness.”
The council briefly discussed soliciting a cost estimate for moving power lines underground in the future.
But for the most part, the council discussed how the city and its residents have responded to the storm.
“We’ve got some boulevard trees that are down on houses,” Harmening said. “We cut them up, get them off the houses and encourage the homeowner to file a claim through our insurance.”
Council member Susan Sanger praised the community for sharing generators and pitching in to cut down trees.
“I have been so impressed with the generosity of one neighbor to the next,” she said. “We had a guy from Eden Prairie who spent the whole day yesterday driving around St. Louis Park with a chainsaw.”
There is still some damage to sewage stations from Thursday and Friday’s storms, but there have been no major malfunctions yet.
“That’s adding insult to injury,” Jacobs speculated jokingly. “You’ve got no power, you’ve got no lights, here’s what you do have.”Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.