Salinas: Nearly 750 reports of downed trees

More than a week after a major wind and rain storm slammed into the Central Coast, the cleanup continues. Salinas Public Works said Friday it responded to seven times the number of downed trees in one week, compared to what it normally gets in an entire year.

“We’re responded to 740 different calls for service regarding trees in the past week,” said Assistant Public Works Director Don Reynolds. “Typically we only respond to 100 or so a year.”

Reynolds said crews are stretched thin with more than a dozen crews working overtime addressing downed trees and other infrastructure problems.

One of the big cleanups is in Chinatown, where a 100-plus year old eucalyptus tree fell last Friday, hurting several people. In the Creekbridge area, other crews cleaned up an area where at least six trees went down.

Those trees came dangerously close to Aubrey Ward’s house. He described them sounding like twigs breaking, and happening every 20 minutes for the next two hours.

“There was a chance and these are 30-40 foot trees, with the right wind direction, they could’ve come very easily down into my house,” Ward said.

As one arborist warned, winter isn’t over yet and everyone who lives around trees needs to be respectful of their height and weight.

It’s something the city has also been weighing.