Timothy Mendez and Ryan Sumler are the dynamic duo as far as Portage Planning Clerk Haley Mack is concerned.
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“They’ve had chainsaws break. They’re using their own equipment,” Mack said.
Portage Planning Clerk Haley Mack is coordinating volunteer efforts on behalf of the city, taking calls from residents who need help cleaning up after the Aug. 11 derecho sent 99 mph winds through the region, and sending volunteers their way.
“I’ve been connected with so many wonderful people,” she said.
“There’s been so many people in need, it’s like, how can we help them all ourselves?” Mack said.
Most of the people helped so far have been elderly, disabled or veterans, but Mendez said he doesn’t ask questions. He just helps where he’s needed.
Mendez, who got his first chainsaw eight months ago, has plenty of experience now, having been a volunteer since Day 1, when he helped clear Woodland Park.
On Wednesday, he was at a home that backs up onto Prairie Duneland Trail, cutting up fallen trees in Teresa Cameron’s yard.
“The program was funny, the way it actually started,” he said. Mendez wanted to help the city, but he was initially told no. Then the city created a liability waiver and the program was a go.
“It’s been a dogfight,” he said, to get trees cut up. “I bought two chainsaws since this started,” including the 24-inch Echo model he was using Wednesday.
Mendez bought professional-grade chainsaws. One broke when the tensioner stopped working. “I literally just broke my 20-inch. I’m heartbroken,” he said.
“My 24-inch yesterday went through a stump and was not able to go through to the other side,” Mendez said. He showed a photo of a tree trunk about 30 inches in diameter. “It was in a disabled guy’s driveway,” he said, so the tree had to be removed so the man could get out of his home.
“Chainsaws are not for everybody. They’re extremely dangerous,” he said. “I watched a ton of videos to know what I’m doing.”
“You have to understand basic geometry,” including where a tree will fall, how to get it to fall in the direction you want it to go, how the tree’s weight is distributed and more, Mendez said.
On Wednesday, he was attacking locust trees. “I’m not a tree guy. All I know is how to cut stuff up.”
“The first time I used a chainsaw like this was for Hurricane Helene,” Sumler said. “That down there was 100 times worse than this. This has been a cakewalk.” Unlike the derecho that hit Northwest Indiana Aug. 11, Hurricane Helene’s winds and flooding claimed hundreds of lives and billions of dollars in property damage, according to the National Weather Service.
“It swept across the South. I’ve never seen devastation like that in my entire life,” Sumler said.
In Tennessee, he went into homes that had been destroyed while helping with search and recovery efforts. “People would come up and give us lists of personal possessions they wanted us to find,” and Sumler and his team found most of the items, sifting through sediment and debris in the process.
“I documented everything from inside the homes when I was down there to everything,” Sumler said, posting videos that showed terrible devastation but didn’t show the worst of the worst.
“When it came to my front door, second instinct kicked in,” he said.
“It’s devastating, but it’s trees. We can rebuild this,” Sumler said.
Mendez said the manuals call for sharpening chainsaw blades after every five hours of operation. He’s just buying new blades. Sumler said he doesn’t even know how to sharpen blades.
Mendez walked carefully among branches lying on the ground, waiting to be cut up and hauled away. “It’s the only time I’m allowed to make a mess. My wife won’t be mad at me.”
He prefers knocking giant limbs down to the ground rather than cutting smaller pieces while they’re still in the air and letting them fall. “When you do this seven to eight hours a day, lifting the saw, your arms are done,” Mendez said.
Looking around Cameron’s yard, he estimated he still had another 1.5 hours of cutting to do.
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Their work has saved people “upward of $200,000,” Mendez guessed. “I think we’re pretty close to about 100 homes we’ve done,” he said.
“This is our hero right here,” Cameron said as she sat on her upper deck watching Mendez in action. “We couldn’t even get up here” because of a fallen tree that blocked the way to the deck, she said.
She and her husband were on a Bible League outing for youth in Crete, Illinois, when the storm hit. “All of a sudden, our watches, our phones, everything started going off,” Cameron said. They went with the kids to shelter.
Getting home was an experience because of all the destruction.
When they finally got near their subdivision, the route was blocked by all the fallen trees and power lines. “You’ve got to go around the river and through the woods,” she said, to follow the route a fellow driver advised so they could get home.
They tried using a new generator, but it wouldn’t start. Someone brought them another.
“Portage has been just fantastic, our mayor and all the volunteers,” Cameron said.
As Cameron told of the trees that barely missed the house but clobbered the air conditioning unit, she pointed out a few trees still standing that she has been told should come down before they fall down. The quotes are “in the tens of thousands and upward,” she said, to remove the trees.
Meanwhile, Portage Township Trustee Brendan Clancy, in partnership with American Legion Post 502, is seeking volunteers to assist their neighbors with small debris cleanup from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29.
Volunteers will meet at the American Legion Post 502, 429 CR 750 N, Valparaiso, before heading out to assist residents.
Coffee and donuts will be served at 9 a.m. and lunch at 1 p.m. for volunteers.
Anyone interested should send the trustee’s office a message or contact the office at 219-762-1623.
Anyone who needs assistance with small brush cleanup or knows someone who does can call the office or submit a request at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13DWDXhWF1VHtMeRwwsKuUwnh2_UaX9jlUF_2pEiPD8E/viewform?edit_requested=true.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.