Storm Damage Cleanup Teams Are in Full Force in Becker County

After Tuesday night's storm, cleanup crews are working to get Becker County back to normal

BECKER COUNTY, Minn. — The city of Detroit Lakes is still cleaning up after this week’s storms tore through Becker County.

People who live in the region are still picking up the pieces left behind after a series of storms that spawned tornadoes ravaged Lakes County.

“I’ve been the emergency manager here since 2013 and this is the worst storm I’ve ever seen,” said Emergency Manger, Craig Fontaine.

Trees are down and some people are still left without power after Mother Nature took its toll on parts of Becker County.

After a Code Red warning in the storm’s path was sent to 7,000 people, it’s been a hectic few days getting the area back up and running.

“The damage assessments and going around and looking at things and seeing what’s going on. It’s time consuming but it’s difficult too,” said Fontaine.

“We’ve really been working hard getting all of this stuff off the property,” said Charles Leighteiser.

This is Leighteiser’s 20th time dropping off his land waste at Becker County Transfer station and says there’s still more he needs to get rid of.

“We’ve been working since the storm went through,” he said. “We were down here Wednesday morning and we’ve been working and working and working and working.”

“It’s been very busy,” added Landfill Manager, Dean Haverkamp. “We’ve had approximately 500 people through yesterday I anticipate it to be even more.”

With that comes at least 2,000 square yards of brush pile that have been brought to Becker County Transfer station in the past few days.

“The public…they’re really appreciative,” said Haverkamp. “In fact, we had folks dropping off bottled water and bottled water for the guys that stayed late.”

Fontaine also said this all couldn’t have been possible without the help from the fire department, law enforcement and public utility workers.

“Those guys working for that really put in a lot of extra time to get us back to where we are today,” said Fontaine.

Becker County proves it truly takes a village and a lending hand in order to get things done.

Becker County Transfer Station will be accepting waste up until 6 p.m. Saturday night.