Fall has come around once again, and with the changing season comes the downpour of our beautiful foliage to collect from our lawns. If you are gathering your leaves from your yard, be sure to follow these simple steps to ensure that the City of Crawfordsville’s Street Department can collect your leaves this fall.
After collecting your leaves, place them along the curb line of your property. Refrain from blocking storm drains, as this can block the drain and cause flooding in areas. There are over 1,000 storm drains in Crawfordsville. While the department works hard to make sure none of them are blocked by leaves and other debris, if you see a storm drain being blocked, please help us by clearing them. This is especially important prior to rainfall.
It is easy to accidentally mix in other items like tree limbs, grass clippings, bushes and flowers when collecting leaf piles. However, when possible, please refrain from mixing these items with your piles. They will damage the collection equipment and potentially harm our crew members and bystanders in the process. If there are noticeable items in your leaf piles, those leaves will not be picked up.
To ensure the safety of the drivers in our community, make sure leaf piles are not obstructing traffic. If you see a leaf pile, please do not park on the pile so that it can be collected by the department. Additionally, if leaves are blown into the middle of the street our leaf vacuums will be unable to reach them and they will not be picked up and could cause danger to those using the roadways.
The street department works very hard to make sure that they cover the entire city. To ensure an area is not left unattended, the city is broken down into four quadrants: northwest, southwest, southeast and northeast. The collection team started on Oct. 24 in the northwest quadrant and will work counterclockwise moving forward. They will cover each quadrant multiple times throughout the fall season. If your leaves aren’t out during collection time, don’t worry. There will be other opportunities for them to be collected. The last round of leaf collections will approximately start around the middle of December.
We love to see the beautiful changes in color to our trees around this time of year, and it is one of the many things that make Crawfordsville so beautiful. However, when it is time for them to drop, it is up to you to collect them and ensure they are ready for the street department to pick them up. We sincerely appreciate your help with this effort. If you have any questions concerning fall leaf collection, call 765-364-5166.
Abigail Campbell is the communications director for the City of Crawfordsville.
