HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. (KDVR) — Cleanup efforts continued at Highlands Ranch after a tornado swept through the town Thursday afternoon.
Seth Carr said the storm uprooted his family’s rooftop garden tree.
“The branches leaned against the house. The trunk wasn’t quite there,” Carr said. “The roots were pulling up the ground and it was just a scary situation.”
Sam Farkas of N&D Tree & Crane Services helped remove the tree from Carr’s home.
“That was just our first order this morning,” said Farkas. “The precipitation combined with the EF1 really was the perfect storm to do major damage in a short amount of time.”
The path of the Highlands Ranch tornado is unpredictable
Farkas said recent rains played a role in the number of trees uprooted.
“Once there is that much rainfall, the root system gets undermined and a lot of things swell. There’s a much greater loss of sediment, and when there are strong winds and they combine, you’ll find that those trees perish a lot more easily,” Farkas said.
Farkas stays busy along with other tree companies like Keown Landscaping.
“We started at 7 this morning and will probably pick up around 11pm and that’s going to be the case for the foreseeable future. I’d say in the next few weeks,” said Donnie Keown of Keown Landscaping.
Farkas said his company’s goal is to help in any way he can.
“Just about every tree company is expected to be busy here over the next few weeks to months,” Farkas said. “It will be a long clean-up process. Our number one goal is to make sure everyone here is helped, happy and safe and that is our goal for the coming weeks and months.”
For homeowners with lots of trees, making sure the trees are regularly trimmed and thinned could help in the event of another storm, Farkas said.
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