Road crews busy clearing debris from roads

Fallen tree branches, road closures, and broken power lines are keeping St. Joseph County Streets Department crews busy. Although the storm rolled through in about an hour, the cleanup is expected to take days.

"Our main goal right now is to get the roads open and I know there is a lot of brush and trees down,” said John Stevens, Riverside Garage Supervisor.

Stevens says Monday night’s storm was one of the strongest he has seen in a while.

"Oh this was a good one, it's very widespread. It will sometimes pick one area and go through, but this one showed no mercy or favoritism,” said Stevens.

County workers aren’t the only ones cleaning up debris.

People in the Oakmont Park neighborhood are pitching in to get the mess cleaned up. 

"We all kind of pitch in and help each other. The gal over here gave me her chain saw that I don't know if I will have to use or not, but we all pitch in and help. I have a big snow blower that I use for everybody here. It's a good neighborhood,” said resident Greg Humnicky.

"This is sort of a community effort yes. This neighborhood does a lot of things together. You know we clean each other's drive ways and we look out for it, that's why I dearly love it here,” said resident Tim Phelan.

Stevens' work crews found themselves in the Oakmont Park neighborhood too. They helped with the branches and debris too large for residents to handle.

There are still roads that are closed because of storm debris. Officials urge you to honor temporary road signs and find alternate routes.