This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Community Corner

36 Structures Damaged, Storm Cost Unknown

The wind storm caused $3.6 million of damage (and counting) county-wide, but monetary estimates for Sierra Madre are still unknown.

Officials are just starting to tally up the damage caused by last week’s wind storm. As of Wednesday, there were 36 reports of structure damage in Sierra Madre, according to James Carlson, Management Analyst for the city. Of those structures, five remain red tagged and eight remain yellow tagged. Immediately following the storm, seven structures were red tagged and six were yellow tagged.

“Staff and volunteers from the Tree Advisory Commission and others are still compiling inventories of lost trees, lost poles, as well as any potentially hazardous situations that may still exist,” said Carlson in an e-mail. “We are addressing the potential hazards as they come in (as much as possible) and are charting the other information as quickly as possible.”

The total cost of the storm is still unknown locally.

Find out what's happening in Sierra Madrewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“We hope to have a dollar figure to announce by Tuesday’s City Council meeting,” said Carlson.

L.A. County has estimated the total cost of damage to be $3.6 million county-wide this week, but that figure does not include structural damaged. The figure is expected to grow as the weeks go on and county officials continue to assess the affects of the storm.

Find out what's happening in Sierra Madrewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

“To date, so far, in the County of Los Angeles, we’re estimating our costs at about $3.6 million,” Bob Spencer, Chief of Public Affairs for Los Angeles County Public Works, told Patch. “There’s no doubt about it. That cost will go up.”

Crews will continue to clear debris and assess county damages, he said.

“We’re still very much in storm response mode, and it’s going to be some time--weeks in fact--until we are able to clean up all the debris and fully assess damage in the area,” Spencer said. “We’re not just looking at roadways; we’re looking at county facilities.”

Public works initially responded by reopening roads and is now focusing on the county flooding system, including channels and debris basins throughout the foothill and San Gabriel communities.

“We’re still in the middle of an active recovery situation,” Spencer said.

It could be several weeks until individual community damage estimates are available, he said.

“We’re going to be continuing this clean up for several weeks,” Spencer said. “Our priority is to look at our flood control system, which will be crucial for the upcoming winter storms.”

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Sierra Madre