Lincoln Parks and Rec taken on more than 1,300 tree calls since severe storms

LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) - After the weekend of severe storms on Aug. 9, Lincoln Parks and Recreation is still chipping away at tree removal across town.

Last week the department had taken on about 750 calls for tree debris, and this week that number is up to more than 1,300.

Director Maggie Stuckey-Ross said those calls span from trimming to limb removal to clearing out entire trees.

“Sometimes responding to a tree takes 20 to 30 minutes, sometimes a crew can be on a single tree for eight hours,” she said. “It’s a wide range of work that we do and it’s really hard to gauge how long it will take to recover from this storm.”

Despite the increase in calls, the teams says it’s still less than the July 31 storm from last summer.

As the Parks and Rec team continues to do inspections and