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Cleanup commencing throughout city

Dunkirk Mayor Wilfred Rosas acknowledged the hard work of the city employees at Tuesday’s Common Council meeting following the massive wind storm Sunday.

“Let me begin by publically thanking all of our staff across all of the departments,” Rosas said. “This weekend, as you know, we had a major storm out here. I was out there yesterday (Monday) and it looked like a war zone in some areas in the city. I went back out there today (Tuesday) and these guys had done an excellent job. I know all the departments were busy, the police department, the fire department, our DPW crews, water and wastewater, all of them put in a really good effort this weekend.”

Randy Woodbury, public works director, said the crews did a great job as well and that winds clocked out at 60 MPH in some areas. Woodbury took time after the meeting to explain that the focus of the cleanup effort has been the removal of trees and branches as well as the cleaning out of water receivers.

“Mike Porpiglia, our streets supervisor, has been working around the clock getting crews mobilized on tree removal and receiver cleanup,” Woodbury began. “Jason Cieslewicz, our parks supervisor, got the pier cleaned up and it is now reopened to the public. He inventoried the benches and garbage receptacles that were lost over the east side of the pier that we look to recover and reuse later on. Rob Curry, water maintenance supervisor, and Bob Laurie, chief operator of the water plant, have been solving issues left and right. They took backhoes out to Crooked Brook and lowered the water level over there. Bill Moore, chief operator of the wastewater treatment plant, kept the plant working throughout all of this. None of this could have been done without everyone’s help.”

Woodbury also shared that the contractor for the retaining wall, St. George Enterprises, will be there all day Wednesday cleaning that up. They were there Monday and Tuesday opening up driveways and getting things reorganized.

“All those things were scheduled to be reset anyhow, so it’s an inconvenience, and it shows the power of what we’re dealing with and how it has to be fastened together better,” Woodbury stated. “The wall the way it was constructed was no match for the waves of Lake Erie.”

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