State contractor crews are about 85-percent complete with removing October storm debris from the curb on state highways with a few more weeks left before the work is complete, officials said.
But the fallout from the historic storm and addressing all of the damage stemming from that event may take a year or more, according to state Department of Transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick.
"We will be dealing with this for quite some time, probably a year or more," he said of the damage from the storm.
The Oct. 29 storm not only pulled down thousands of trees and branches, it compromised the health of hundreds of others, which may lead to problems in the future, officials said.
"Our first order of business was to deal with things potentially unsafe – we have done that," Nursick said, adding that contract crews also were sent to collect and reduce that debris as a second step.
"Third was to deal with those issues that are not safety issues right now but will be later on," he said, giving as an example trees that were partially compromised but remain standing. "We'll be dealing with it for a year."
For now, the focus remains removing the debris that sits on the side of state highways waiting to be collected, Nursick said, adding that estimates are that crews should be done by the first or second week of January.
About 4 million cubic yards of tree and other storm-related debris have been collected statewide and taken to nine facilities, including in Danbury, to be reduced, Nursick said.
"We expect probably two or more weeks of continued debris removal in Newtown," he said. "Folks should not be putting out more debris."
Newtown officials said that the , but similar to the state, future fallout from the October storm, in the form of branches that are leaning but not broken as a result of the damage inflicted on them, could continue through the winter.
"We're going to be at that for awhile," Director Fred Hurley has said.
