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Mayor: May storm produced tens of thousands of tons of debris and damaged more than 1,000 structures; cleanup spanned months
Summary
In his State of the City address the mayor detailed the May storm response: sanitation crews collected over 16,000 tons of debris and contractors collected about 12,000 tons, the mayor said; emergency management recorded significant structural damage and parks lost hundreds of trees. The mayor praised city staff and contractors for cleanup work.
The mayor described the May storm that struck Garland as producing the largest debris and power-outage response the city has seen. He told attendees that sanitation crews collected over 16,000 tons of debris and contractor crews collected an additional 12,000 tons; he said the city landfill accepted more than 32 tons (as stated in the address).
The mayor said the storm caused widespread power outages—about half of Garland Power & Light customers (roughly 35,000 homes) lost power during the event—and that crews restored power to about 80% of affected customers within 12 hours. He also said the city's emergency management department recorded 1,156 structures damaged, including 104 that were described as majorly damaged or destroyed.
Sanitation and contractor cleanup work took approximately 75 days, the mayor said, and parks crews lost hundreds of trees across the storm path, including at Firewheel Golf Park. He thanked city departments and contractors for extended cleanup efforts, noting staff worked nights, weekends and holidays.
The mayor said the storm '2024 hurricane-force winds' (he referred to the event informally as '2urricane Garland') produced more debris in a single event than the combined totals of tornadoes in prior years he cited. He urged patience during the response and credited emergency management, sanitation and other departments for their work.
The address did not include detailed breakdowns of cleanup costs, insurance recoveries or FEMA/state disaster declarations; those items were not specified in the mayor's remarks.
