MOLINE, Ill. — Tuesday, August 10, 2021 makes one year since the devastating derecho hit the Quad Cities.
There's only one team in Moline continuing to clean up damaged trees from the storm. Moline Arborist, Terry Bates, says the team takes down a tree damaged from last year's derecho each week.
Last year, the storm wiped away hundreds of trees in the area.
"We spent a lot of time just clearing up like stuff that was down. We had streets crews and the parks crews all working together and we were picking up limbs and brush everywhere," said Bates.
Once a tree is cut down, it's chipped into pieces and turned into mulch. Bates says the city gave the mulch made from the trees to Moline residents for free.
"We are constantly under the pressure on you know something like that they're coming along really knock this back,"
said Bates.
A year later, Bates says his crew is still behind on the derecho tree removal and regular tree work.
"We're doing our best and I'm hopeful that we're going to make a lot more progress as the year progresses," said Bates.
Moline Public works says before the derecho they were planning on doing preventative work on trees but had to react to the storm. Bates says the back log for tree work is so long he doesn't know if they'll ever catch up.
"We were proactively pruning, removing trees and tying up trees on blocks, rather than having to run reactively. Whether we will ever get to that stage, that's the dream," said Bates.
Although the team says the storm put them behind schedule they remember the positive impact it had on the community.
"We had some great people coming out and helping pull stuff out of the road and they kind of brought some communities together," said Bates.