SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — There are trees down all across the valley.
Some people are cleaning up from Wednesday's storm, others are still picking up from storms over the weekend. Landscapers have been working around the clock to get the monsoon mess cleaned up.
Howard Hansen, arborist and owner of Heartwood Tree Care, said he hasn't seen damage like this in several years.
"The last couple of weeks have been really hard with monsoons so I guess it’s been a few years since we last had a hard monsoon like this," Hansen explained.
He said he's been working 14-15 hour days the past week.
"We’re getting about 20-25 calls and emails a day and we’re actually a small company of ten people so that's a lot."
One of those callers was Alan Kilker.
"The tree basically split almost in thirds," Kilker said. "A third fell on the house and the other two-thirds luckily fell into the yard."
Kilker said he watched helplessly as the tree in his Scottsdale backyard crashed down Monday night, basically in slow motion.
"I usually come out to make sure my patio is safe and secure and within a couple of seconds the pillows were flying through the air, I hear the tree crack and I said to my wife, 'this is going to come down,' for some reason I just knew it."
Hansen said it’s a common sight across the Valley currently.
"There are trees on cars, trees on houses, trees in pools, and I’ve seen several trees go through walls."
But the mess won’t go to waste. Heartwood Tree Care recycles everything. Parts of fallen trees can be turned into furniture, firewood, and mulch.
"All the branches here, those will go through the chipper and will be turned into mulch, we deliver those for free for community gardens," Hansen said. "Then you have trunks, we cut that into firewood. Any larger trunks that can be used for lumber we get those to a local sawmill, they mill it and turn it into tabletops and furniture so it's all locally sourced hardwood."
Hansen added the cleanup across the Valley could take weeks.
"So the one storm that hit Friday, we’re still getting calls on now and it's Thursday so then Monday, Tuesday hit so it just keeps backing up and there’s just not enough people to get the jobs done so we’re still doing it."
Kilker has lived in his Scottsdale home for 15 years and said he's never seen anything like this.
“We’ve always had a lot of wind and tree limbs down every once in a while but nothing of this magnitude, I think this has been probably the worst we’ve had in a long time.”
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