As Austin Energy crews continue work to restore power to customers, Austin Resource Recovery is beginning the long work of taking care of the culprits for the utility's massive outage over the last week: downed tree limbs.
ARR has said the cleanup will take months. For context, it took just over five weeks for crews to clear up storm debris after 2021's freeze. This go-round, city staff estimated it would take until at least April. Most of the cleanup efforts will be focused in West Austin.
A look at 311 call data from the city's data portal shows the vast majority of calls came from neighborhoods west of MoPac. Of the 17,429 calls to 311 for debris removal, more than 10,000 are west of the state highway that borders the dense canopy of live oaks and Ashe junipers in neighborhoods like Circle C down south all the way up to Jollyville up north.
Broken down by City Council district, the western and northwestern districts accounted for 60% of calls. District 6 had the most calls, with 3,529. District 8 residents made 3,173 calls for debris removal, while District 10 placed 3,465 calls for service as of Wednesday afternoon.
