BETHESDA, Md. -
It has been more nearly three weeks since that wicked derecho swept across the D.C. area and the damage done that night is still affecting many neighborhoods.
The power may be back on, but the costs of the mighty storm are still piling up.
"It's amazing to see the destruction that the storm caused," says Bethesda homeowner Heather Denchfield.
A huge cigar tree standing next to and above the Denchfield home is now being trimmed of its dead and dying branches.
"We had several big branches puncture holes through the roof," Denchfield says. "Fortunately it wasn't anything major, but significant enough that we had to have it repaired."
Two giant tulip poplars behind the Denchfield's next door neighbor's house are next on the list.
"We wanted to get some trimmed and pruned back so it's a little less scary if another storm blows in," says Denchfield.
In John Graves' backyard, part of a giant maple was torn off and crashed smack into his roof.
"It happened with the storm," Graves told us. "And the lights went out and I heard this big crunch. The house shook."
He is still waiting to get the tree branch removed from his roof.
All of the tree debris collected in Montgomery County is ending up at the county-run transfer station in Derwood.
"We'll be busy for the next two weeks as they clean up all the residential streets," says Sean Ryan, an official with Maryland Environmental Service, a company hired to take care of the county's green waste.
Ryan says they have received 100,000 cubic yards of tree debris so far. He says that is equivalent to more than a thousand tractor trailers filled with this stuff.
"There was more material during this storm than we came in here during Hurricane Isabel," Ryan says. "And a lot of larger, older growth."
Ryan's company is turning all of it into mulch to be sold at your neighborhood home improvement store.
