City of Bellevue officials met this afternoon with the Sarpy County Unified Command regarding the response and ongoing cleanup efforts from the storm and tornados that struck the city on the evening of Friday, June16, 2017. Like the City of Bellevue, the Sarpy County Board of Commissioners have also submitted an Emergency Declaration for Sarpy County to the Governor’s Office for his review.
The discussion at today’s meeting focused on a plan for the disposal of outdoor storm-damaged items that were a result of Friday's storm. These items include but are not limited to non-tree related debris such as fencing, roof shingles, siding, deck material, and trampolines that were damaged in the storm. The City of Bellevue is working through a number of possibilities with Sarpy County and our solid waste contractor, Papillion Sanitation. We hope to finalize a unified plan with Sarpy County on Tuesday which will be released to the public soon afterwards.
The Sarpy County Sheriff’s Department and the Bellevue Police Department reported that they have both added some additional resources to help patrol the areas hardest hit by the tornadoes to help keep people out of these areas who do not belong.
OPPD reported that they have approximately 340 people, made up of OPPD crews and outside resources to help restore power in these areas. They are making significant progress and are hoping to have power back to all areas soon. OPPD encourages residents to use their website oppd.com to check the status of repairs or to report any additional outages.
Following up on a couple items from yesterday: The City's Tree Debris Dump on Cedar Island Road and Rose Lane will remain open to the public through 8pm this evening. Starting on Tuesday, June 20th the City will move the Tree Dump to Haworth Park north of the Softball Fields. This tree dump is only available for tree related debris and will remain open to the public to dispose of tree related debris from 8am to 8pm at least through Sunday, June 25th. At that point, a further assessment will be made on the need to keep the tree debris dump open. The Tree Dump on Cedar Island Road will not be open to the public as of Tuesday morning so city crews can use it for neighborhood pickup disposals.
The City continues to strongly encourage those citizens that are able to take advantage of the free City Tree Dump and regular tree branch pickup through Papillion Sanitation throughout the week. Beginning on Tuesday, June 20th, the Bellevue Public Works Department will coordinate with the Sarpy County Public Works Department to start curbside pickup of tree related debris in neighborhoods. City Crews cannot come on to private property or yards to remove debris so citizens need to make sure any damaged trees and branches are cut and placed into bundles no more than 6 feet long and are placed at the curb for crews to pick up. City Crews will begin these neighborhood pickup efforts on Tuesday beginning on Harrison and heading south throughout the week to the city limits so citizens are encouraged to place tree related debris on the curb as soon as possible.
Once again, thank you to all of the citizens of Bellevue for their patience and efforts as we cleanup from this devastating storm. The City will provide additional updates as needed.