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Ashland rumpled by windstorm, but tree-trimming helped reduce problems By Morgan Rothborne Updated: Jan 05, 2023 06:00 PM A A A downed tree in Ashland was one of dozens Wednesday night. [Photo courtesy of Tom McBartlett] Dozens of trees downed in this week’s windstorm mobilized Ashland city staff to keep roads clear and the power on into Thursday afternoon. The region’s high wind warning ended at 4 p.m.Thursday, but by then the city had already seen at least 25 to 30 downed trees, said Mike Morrison, deputy director of the Ashland Public Works Department. Some streets were closed Wednesday night, including Winburn Way near Lithia Park. It was unsafe for staff to go in and remove them or for anyone else to drive those streets. “All streets are now open,” Morrison said Thursday afternoon. “There may still be trees on some of them, but they’re open. We’ve had staff out since 7 o’clock last night. It was kind of scary there for a little bit.” Trees that fall on private property can’t be removed by Public Works employees, as much as they’d like to, he said. Only trees that fall on public rights of way contributed to his estimate of nearly 30 down trees in 24 hours. Fallen trees may lie on some streets for a little while after they’re reported to Public Works, because the department tries to triage through its list of reports, he explained. “If it was blocking the hospital, say, they’ll take care of that one before one that’s blocking maybe a two-way street,” he said. Thomas McBartlett, director of electric utilities in Ashland, said he was grateful for the work that’s been done to trim trees away from power lines in recent years. “We’ve had some outages — there’s no doubt about that — but we didn’t have any of our major feeders go out. When one of those goes out, that’s a major outage: 500 to a 1,000. It was all small clusters,” he said. He estimated there were around 10 power outages over 24 hours during the storm, all limited to small parts of the grid. Sometimes it was only one house; other times it impacted 30 people or a whole street. Recent emphasis on wildfire risk has led to what he described as aggressive trimming of city trees near power lines over the past year and a half. “Most of the ones that got us were from clear across the street, not the ones near the lines,” he said of falling trees that took down power lines. “Wildfire vegetation management probably paid us dividends yesterday.” Residents have been calling about downed trees not only to Public Works but to Ashland Fire and Rescue, too, McBartlett said. But in these situations, city staff tend to end up called to the same locations and work together helping each other flag the area, divert traffic, repair lines and remove trees, with each contributing their own expertise. “It’s kind of calmed down for us, but we’ll be ready for the next one,” he said Thursday. For more information on the local weather, see weather.gov/mfr . To reach the city of Ashland with questions or concerns about the weather event, email [email protected] or call 541-488-6002. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected] or 541-776-4487. Follow her on Twitter @MRothborne.