After winter storm, city of Idaho Falls begins picking up brush and tree limbs

IDAHO FALLS — After this weekend’s winter storm, the city of Idaho Falls is beginning to clean up a lot of brush and fallen tree limbs.

The city of Idaho Falls Sanitation Division started removing brush and tree limbs Tuesday and will be cleaning throughout the day Wednesday.

“With the storm, particularly in the numbered streets and some of those older parts of town, there’s a lot of branches that were downed from the snow and wind, and they are in people’s yards,” said city spokesman Eric Grossarth.

Crews will remove the brush and tree limbs for people if tied in bundles. It cannot exceed 4 feet long and 50 pounds in weight, Grossarth said. The limbs must be left on the curb for sanitation staff to remove them.

Grossarth told EastIdahoNews.com a lot of the power outage issues over the weekend had to do with trees.

“We were getting a lot of limbs that were going into power lines, damaging those,” he said.

Idaho Falls Power estimated that over 3,000 people were without power at one point, but that number fluctuated.

Grossarth added it’s a good example of why trimming trees is so important.

“You, of course, can’t avoid every limb falling down, but you can work to get some of those dead limbs out and away from things that they could damage, particularly power lines. March is a good time while trees are still dormant to trim those trees,” he said.

If anyone has brush and tree limbs that need to be picked up at a later date, the city of Idaho Falls Sanitation Division can get them.

“We actually clean up small tree limbs tied up in bundles year-round,” Grossarth said.

People are encouraged to call Sanitation at (208) 612-8491. The limbs will be picked up for free.