Owen Weiss: Welcome to our first episode of Clayton News Network Season Two. As always, I’m your host, Owen Weiss, and today we will be talking with Mayor McAndrew about the ways Clayton has been recovering from last year’s tornado. Let’s dig in.
Owen Weiss: Hello. Welcome back to Clayton News Network. You’ve been on here before.
Mayor McAndrew: Yes.
Owen Weiss: So today, we’ll be talking about the tornado that just absolutely demolished everything here in Clayton. My first question is how are we as a community recovering from that?
Mayor McAndrew: People have always continued to help people with, you know, if they had yard work and, um, you know, just stuff that needed to be done around their homes. I think that was something that continued to happen and probably continues to happen. Um, you know, people, I think, as you can see there, you know, there’s still lots of, um, properties that need, you know, I mean, there’s still plenty of roofs that need to be wrapped. There are still plenty of windows that are out. Um, you know, that’s certainly true. You can see that, you know, at Fontbonne, you can see that, um, especially on homes along Wydown and on Aberdeen and in Arundel. I think those were certainly our hardest hit areas. Um, so I think, you know, in terms of recovery efforts, um, for residents, you know, I think people are certainly still, I don’t think it’s always been easy. I think some people have had good experiences with their insurance companies, and some people have had not so good experiences. So, um, it seems to really differ widely depending on who you talk to and which insurance company they’re dealing with.
Owen Weiss: For people who haven’t yet gotten help, are there any resources that people can utilize to get what they need? I mean, like let’s say someone still has like a broken window and no one has come to fix it yet. Like, who can they go to talk to to help it get fixed?
Mayor McAndrew: Well, I think people are just talking. I mean, so I think the way insurance works is a lot of times people will if somebody’s window hasn’t been fixed, for instance, or a window or their roof, I think it’s because they’re still just waiting on their insurance company to approve a roofer or approve like a company or a contractor to do work on their home. So I think most people have an idea of what they need to get done. I think it’s just a matter of making sure they have all their ducks in a row with whichever contractor roofer that their insurance company has approved. I don’t think anybody’s unable to get help. It’s just a matter of them having to jump through the hoops related to their insurance company. Unlike a lot of people in the city of Saint Louis, who didn’t have insurance. Um, you know, I think our residents largely had home insurance, so they’re able to, um, you know, get help. It’s just, you know, having to deal with waiting, you know, for roofers that are available and just waiting for approvals from insurance companies.
Owen Weiss: Yeah. Um, what was the most reported problem caused by the tornado?
Mayor McAndrew: The big thing was obviously lots of tree limbs were down. Um, so I think that was the biggest problem. You know, there were a lot of trees. You know, we had big, beautiful trees in Clayton. So I think trees blocking driveways, streets, and trees pulling up sidewalks. So then people, you know. Yeah. Could walk down sidewalks, that sort of thing. I mean, I’m sure with individual homes, it was just everything related to, you know, roof damage, you know, windows being blown out.
Owen Weiss: So, um, that’s actually a perfect segue to my next question. Um, so I’ve heard a lot of people talking about how bare Wydown looks now after the tornado hit. Um, are there plans to replant the trees?
Mayor McAndrew: Yeah, so there’s definitely a plan. So, um, we lost, you know, over about over a thousand trees were affected by the tornado. Um, I would say three or four hundred of them just have to be pruned. So you’ll see crews around town right now because a lot of tree companies are pruning. I’m just talking about a lot of times that’s done during the winter because, you know, all the leaves are gone. So it’s an easy time to do it. So we’ve contracted with a company called Timberline who’s doing a lot of our tree pruning for the next like three or four months. So it should be done by the springtime. Um, in terms of the trees that were lost. So we lost about seven hundred trees, if you can believe it. Um, during the tornado, um, we, um, will go out to bid soon for a contract to replant, um, about a thousand trees. So every year, um, we, we take out about one hundred trees because that’s just throughout the city. They either are, you know, old or there’s some sort of disease. So we replant about one hundred trees every year. So with the seven hundred trees that we lost, plus about one hundred trees, we will plant about a thousand trees in the next three years. That will start in about that will kind of start next fall. So basically starting next fall we will plant just over, you know, maybe about three hundred and fifty trees every year. Um, we will plant the most trees like percentage wise, it’s a pretty elaborate formula. Um, so the most trees that will get planted will be in like, Ward one. So like Aberdeen, Aberdeen was the most other than Wydown. Aberdeen was the most hurt street in terms of tree loss. So they’re going to get a higher percentage of new trees as compared to like um, you know, like your street on Meramec, like even though Meramec was hurt. Um, you will get new trees in the next year, but you’re maybe not going to get as many new trees as Aberdeen because they lost more trees, if that makes sense. Yeah. So there is a very elaborate tree planting. We can’t plant seven hundred trees next fall. Um, not I mean, honestly, the biggest reason we could potentially contract out and our crews could potentially go through and plant seven hundred trees. The problem is, you know, we’re a small community. We don’t have a lot of public works crews. So in ten years or in five years when all those trees have to be pruned because trees have to be pruned, that’s just how you keep them healthy. Our crews could never prune that many trees, so that’s why we can’t plant seven hundred trees next year. But we’ll plant all seven hundred new trees in the next three years to make up for the tornado. So you have to space them out. We have to, because otherwise it just would be untenable for our crews to be able to keep up with the pruning of all those trees at one time, like, you know, at that, at that cycle when they have to be pruned, um, Wydown Boulevard, especially between like University and Demun, where it was really hurt the most. Um, that will probably be on a separate planning schedule because, um, you know, we will definitely start planting trees there next fall. But, um, there’s a little bit more work that has to go into that area because we have to put the electrical circuit went out. So we have to have a civil engineer make plans for a new electric circuit, a new irrigation line, because all that got pulled out, too. Um, so the Wydown median area, especially between like Wydown Middle School and Demun, um, is just a bigger project. So that’s kind of taken out of the other planting schedule. Um, but it will be worked on in the coming year as well.
Owen Weiss: So, is there anything that Clayton people like, people who live here can help out with?
Mayor McAndrew: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, neighbors, of course, like, as I said, I think are still helping neighbors, um, with their homes. Um, you know, a big thing that I think will happen in the next six months to a year is we have, um, the Clayton Community Foundation is a our kind of our nonprofit arm that accepts donations. Um, they’re going to undergo a, you know, a big effort to try to raise money to help us, um, with tree planting. So, um, I think they’re going to do a big fundraising effort in the next six months, again, just to help us make sure we get, um, some of these, some of the costs of all these, this tree planting covered, um, even though we’re getting FEMA money for debris removal, for, um, lights, for electric lights, uh, sidewalk fixing, fixing stuff like that. FEMA doesn’t reimburse us for any sort of tree planting. So, um, I mean, that’s a big way that, you know, I think people who are interested, I had a lot of people reach out to me and say, Hey, I’d love to donate some money to help plant trees. So I think that’s that’s a at least a financial way, um, that people can help.
Owen Weiss: Yeah. Um, like, financially, how much lasting damage has this done to Clayton?
Mayor McAndrew: You know. Yeah. I mean, we’re so we’re lucky in Clayton. We had a healthy we had healthy reserves. Kind of like a savings account. It’s called a fund balance. Um, but you would know it as, like, a savings account. So we were lucky. I mean, we’re Clayton’s very financially healthy, so we were able to use some of these reserves in order to basically, that’s why we were able to kind of clean up so fast, because we could use our reserves to kind of, um, get all those trucks in and get all that debris removal out. Um, so however, you know, that’s still, you know, costs are still coming in, but let’s say it’s about five to seven million dollars in tornado money that we’re having to spend out of our general fund. Um, so our fund reserves, um, we’re hoping because, um, President Trump did declare a federal disaster area. So we’re still hoping to get FEMA funds back. So, you know, the federal government will hopefully reimburse about seventy five percent. And then, um, FEMA, which is the State Emergency Management Association. So SEMA does ten percent. So we’re hoping to get about eighty five percent back, um, on what we expended. So, um, which is great, you know, that I think, you know, that’s a we still haven’t gotten any checks back, which is not unusual. It takes a long time. Our staff is we have meetings every week. Our staff is constantly talking to our FEMA representative who was assigned to us. Um, you know, they’re often asking for more information. So, um, so, yeah, so, I mean, again, it’s hopeful that we’ll get about eighty five percent back, which would put us in great shape in terms of even though, you know, we had this great, you know, healthy fund balance. Um, it’s still hard to lose that chunk of change, especially since we’re, you know, wanting to do other things around the city. So, um, like the effort in Shaw Park.
Owen Weiss: Um, I was gonna ask something like that. So was this money, like, set aside for natural disasters, or was it taken out of, like, a savings account just for stuff in general?
Mayor McAndrew: Yeah, it’s just stuff in general. Like, I, I wish I could say we had like a it’s just. Yeah, it’s kind of just a savings account, but it’s always good to have a savings account because you never know when stuff like this is going to happen. Right. So, um, but that’s kind of why you have a savings account because you never know when. I mean, who would have ever expected a tornado. But. Yeah. So but it’s yeah, it’s just set aside usually, you know, if all of a sudden like, you know, there’s a big, huge problem in the road or something that we have to fix all of a sudden. But yeah, that’s that’s kind of what a savings account or a fund, a fund balance is used for.
Owen Weiss: Yeah. So, um, you told us, like what some of the adults of Clayton could do, but a lot of kids don’t have the money to donate. So is there anything that, uh, students in Clayton or just kids can do to help around?
Mayor McAndrew: Um, you know, I mean, I think always, you know, I think if you ever see, you know, kids are constantly walking around. I think if you ever see a older neighbor that might still need some help with yard cleanup, I think that’s something that’s always, um, certainly great. Um, you know, people like you spreading the word about, you know, what’s happening, like understanding when you hear stuff about like, oh, everything’s so bare. When are we going to plant trees? You can say, oh, I, you know, I talked to somebody. I, you know, the city is going to start planting trees. So I think making sure the right information is getting out so that people know what’s happening is always, you know, a great way. Something that people can do without giving money.
Owen Weiss: That’s all the questions I have for you.
Mayor McAndrew: Okay, yeah.
Owen Weiss: All right. Well, thank you so much for being here today.
Mayor McAndrew: You are very welcome. Have a good weekend.
Owen Weiss: You too.
Mayor McAndrew: Bye.
Owen Weiss: Thank you so much for tuning in to yet another episode of Clayton News Network. Make sure to leave us a five-star rating, follow our podcast, and leave us a comment on what you thought. Now go out and help someone. All royalty-free music was made by Adobe Podcasts using the baseline song.
