The mayor of Cheyenne has declared an emergency in the city as workers clean up downed trees and repair damaged properties after Thursday’s massive windstorm.
Mayor Patrick Collins said Friday morning that the city was still assessing the scope of damages and needed cleanup resulting from the 90-to-100 mph winds that tore across Cheyenne taking down trees, downing power lines and creating havoc across the community.
“I can tell you we had 179 calls out for the fire department and over 250 for our police department,” he said. “That is way, way above an average day for us. So, it was all-hands-on-deck around here.”
Calls to emergency services included downed power lines, people who were injured, and “a myriad of things,” he said. The departments were going from “call-to-call” for much of the day.
Collins said the biggest challenge will be all of the downed trees around the city. The city’s Forestry Department Thursday cleared more than 50 trees that had fallen across rights of way, just cutting them up off streets and moving them to the side.
City parks have many downed trees and hanging branches creating safety hazards, Collins said. The city’s golf courses will be closed for at least the next few days due to the trees down and the dangers posed by them.
In addition to the city’s Forestry Department, the Recreation and Events staff are also working on the cleanup, he said.
Emergency Declared
“I declared an emergency this morning that allows us to be able to hire some private contractors to supplement them without having to go through our normal city council processes,” Collins said. “We can’t wait two weeks to get the extra help.”
In addition to the downed trees, the city had damage to vehicles with windshields blown out and at the historic Cheyenne Depot Museum the shingles were blown off the roof. He said it will be a challenge to find a company that can do the historic restoration to replace them.
At the Cheyenne Depot Museum store, Mike Schneider said he could see the shingles blown “all over the place.” One hit a depot window and broke it. Many were blown into the Union Pacific rail yard. In his Central High School neighborhood, the wind took down three or four pine trees, and he witnessed streetlights out and street signs knocked over.
“I’ve lived here since the ‘70s,” he said. “I’ve never seen 90-to-100 mph winds in all the years I’ve been here.”
Attempts by Cowboy State Daily to reach Cheyenne tree removal firms were mainly unsuccessful.
Nate Ditto of Envisia Care Services said he had gotten many calls and was too busy to do an interview and was trying to get people to help with the load.
“I’m actually up in a tree right now,” he said.
Never Seen It So Bad
At the home maintenance and landscaping company Iron Rock, owner Kyle Osterman said he has been responding to calls to deal with downed fences and fallen trees.
On Thursday, he helped clear trees out of roadways and, on Friday, he was going back for the trees, cutting them up and hauling them out.
He said he also has been called to redo privacy fences and repair shed damages. The coming week will be busy with just cleanup, and the fences are a continual issue when the wind blows. “The biggest thing we’ve had to do is to haul away trees. We had to use a couple of pickups to get one out of the road yesterday,” Osterman said. “There is a lot more damage than we are used to seeing.”
At Frontier Worx, a Cheyenne handyman and lawn services company, the owner said he has been dealing with many calls related to downed roof gutters, fences destroyed and trees. He was working on a roof gutter when he spoke with Cowboy State Daily.
“There are more calls coming in than I can actually take care of,” said Jay, who declined to give his last name. “I’d say I am getting at least four or five an hour.”
He said he was born and raised in the city and has never seen it so bad. He compared it to 2012 when roofs were blown off of businesses in town.
“We’ve never seen it this bad,” he said.
No More 100-Year-Old Tree
Former legislator Bryan Pedersen was out of town on a business trip when he received a call from his son on Thursday.
“The tree is gone,” his son told him him.
“What do you mean it’s gone?” Pedersen said.
Then he started receiving photos.
The tree, he estimates to be the same age as his house — 100 years — was a 50-foot pine that fell in about the best place it could, diagonally and filling up his front yard in Cheyenne.
There’s no damage to his house, but it’s still going to have an impact.
“The tree was amazing,” he said. “It provided so much shade for our house. Our energy bill is going to be higher now.”
Not only that, but there’s the cost of tree removal. He said he’s going to do part of that on his own.
“I got some guys who are going to help me cut that thing up Friday afternoon, and then I gotta get that stump out of the ground,” he said.
He said he called his insurance company but wasn’t optimistic with the prospects.
Stuck In An Elevator
Across town, Tom Lacock, the associate director of the Wyoming AARP, had just walked into an elevator going up to his fourth floor office in downtown Cheyenne.
The moment the door closed, everything darkened. The power was out, and he was stuck.
Early on, the predictions for electricity to be restored was bleak.
A text message promised a return to light by 3 a.m.
Lacock’s phone had plenty of charge and he just bought a sandwich from Mort’s Bagel.
So he sat down, turned on the Iowa-Ohio State basketball game in the Big Ten Tournament and opened up his sandwich.
“Luckily, I hit the bathroom before I went to Mort’s,” he said. “If not, who knows what would have happened.”
He didn’t take any chances though.
Well aware of the dreary estimate for power restoration, he called 911 and asked to be let out of the elevator “when they had some time.”
The estimate was nowhere close. Only an hour after being trapped in the elevator, the power turned back on and he was safely delivered to the fourth floor.
“I’ve had worse days,” Lacock said, laughing.
Airport Damage
Cheyenne Regional Airport Director Tim Bradshaw said the airport experienced damage to the roofs of the building that houses the Drug Enforcement Agency as well as the professional building, which houses offices for doctors and attorneys.
“The control tower was evacuated, that’s normal protocol when winds reach more than 70 mph,” he said. “We had three commercial flights cancel yesterday afternoon, last night and then this morning. Today we are doing a real full assessment of everything before we contact our insurance for a claim.”
Cheyenne insurance agent Aaron Knifong said he was fielding calls from clients about wind damage but not as many as he thought he would.
“We had a couple of roofs that were damaged pretty good, some fences and some campers,” he said. “But we have not been overwhelmed like I thought we might.”
Knifong said his own house and property survived but around town he was seeing a lot of trees down, damaged fences and trees on houses.
Collins said he was proud of the efforts of city employees to respond to the crisis and asks for patience from residents and safety awareness as city staff works to get the community cleaned up and parks and other properties restored and useable.
“I went to high school 50 years ago, so that gives you a sense of how long I have been in Cheyenne. I have been mayor now for six years,” he said. “We’ve had windy days in Cheyenne, but I’ve never seen them sustained like this. We had that 109 mph gust north of town and 92 mph here in the city. I’ve never, ever seen anything like that.”
Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.
