Cleanup effort begins as trees litter roads after Florence

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) —  Trees are down all over our area, which means the beginning of a long cleanup effort.

At a news conference in New Hanover County Saturday afternoon, county manager Chris Coudriet said crews would begin removing falling trees.

Any trees that have damaged power lines will be left for Duke Energy contractors to handle safely.

But any trees fallen on private property will most likely be left for the owner to deal with.

One tree removal company manager and his workers drove all the way from Florida to assist with that cleanup effort.

“Unfortunately it just does not look good. There’s so many historic oaks that have just tipped. They got top heavy, the soil got very wet and they just fell, there’s roads that you can’t even get up and down. But like I said, hopefully we can help people be able to start to navigate and be able to get in and out of the city,” said Action Tree Care manager Christian Elliot.

Elliot says he has traveled to other areas to assist with storm cleanup in the past, and warns that it can be dangerous for an untrained person to try and remove trees themselves.