KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The storms that hit the Kansas City area Sunday night into early Monday morning left extensive tree damage and opportune business for tree removal companies.
“Prairie Village got hit pretty hard, so I’d imagine you can’t go more than a few blocks without seeing another one of our crews out here,” said Dylan Leach, an arborist with Arbor Masters.
He was right. The neighborhood KSHB 41's Rachel Henderson found Leach in had at least five other trucks parked along the street.
"Everybody’s out, you know, when everything happens, everybody get busy," Martinez said.
In a way, arborists and first responders have a lot in common.
“It’s one of those things, you know, [if it’s an] emergency, you got to get on it,” said Noel Martinez, the founder of Noel’s Tree Service, LLC.
It’s certainly an around-the-clock job.
“I’m 24 hours,” Martinez laughed.
The damage he and other crews saw was far from timely.
“There’s plenty of guys that get calls in the middle of the night like, ‘Hey guys, we need you to come in, we got work,’ and they’re like, 'Alright, sounds good, we’ll be there,'” Leach said.
But it’s the sporadic storm damage that makes for prime business opportunities for companies like his, particularly this time of year.
“Between the periodic storms we’ve had maybe once a week over the past five, six weeks, I mean, we’ve been very busy, and we’ll be busy probably all week with this cleanup,” Leach said.
And like first responders, they try to keep service in mind, even if that comes in the form of advice.
“Whenever you’re calling a tree company, make sure you’re talking with a certified arborist,” Leach said. “Having your trees pruned, it’s kind of something that you can wait on but eventually, something will kind of show itself by the next storm system coming through.”
And whenever that comes, they say they know where they’ll be.
“We know when the storm hit is when we get on it,” Martinez said.
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