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The City of Riverside has applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for reimbursement of expenses incurred because of the derecho last August.

City Administrator Christine Yancey says they’re finalizing the FEMA paperwork to receive about $12,000 associated with their post-derecho cleanup efforts, “It wasn’t so much the big trees, we weren’t anywhere near the likes of what happened up along Highway 30. We had just a bunch of little things that were down, so just paying for those to get them picked up. We don’t have a chipper, so we had to hire it done. I’m sure we had to pay a lot more than normal because everyone (wood chipping companies) were in Cedar Rapids. We had a limb come down on an Alliant (Energy) line which powered two of our generators for our lift stations for the wastewater (system).”

Yancey says the derecho was one of the reasons the city is looking to review its tree ordinance with the desire to receive Tree City USA status, “The designation is one that shows you care for your trees, you’re taking an active role in making sure that you not only do tree planting and tree removal, but you do tree maintenance to preserve the life of the trees, you’re looking at the species of the trees you’re putting in so you’re not overpopulating with one species. Everybody put ash trees in because it grew quickly and it was beautiful, but now look what’s happening. So many cities put in the ash trees and then came the emerald ash borer and everyone’s losing them all.”

Yancey says having a Tree City USA sign at the city limits would show visitors they care for local forestry management.