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Monsoon and storm debris cleanup in Tucson
The National Weather Service defines Tucson’s monsoon as June 15 through September 30. It brings more than half the year’s rain in about eight weeks, and most of the wind damage a Tucson yard will ever see.
What the monsoon does, by the National Weather Service’s numbers
The NWS Tucson office defines the season as June 15 through September 30, and puts Tucson’s average monsoon precipitation at roughly six inches — its pages give 5.69 and 6.06 inches depending on the normal period used. Against an annual normal of 10.61 inches, that is more than half the year’s rain. The 1991–2020 monthly normals put July at 2.21 inches, August at 1.98, September at 1.32 and June at 0.23, so the damage clusters in July and August. The office names four hazards: microbursts and downbursts with gusts over 70 mph, flash flooding at rainfall rates up to four inches an hour, dust storms that travel dozens of miles, and lightning — including dry lightning in the ramp-up weeks before the rain arrives.
Seventy-mile-an-hour gusts on shallow-rooted desert trees is the mechanism behind most of the calls this site gets in August: mesquites and palo verdes split at the crotch or pushed over root-ball and all, and whatever they land on comes down with them.
The morning after: safety, then photographs, then access
Look up before you look down. A limb resting on a power line, or a line on the ground in the yard, belongs to the electric utility before it belongs to anyone with a saw. Photograph everything that is broken — roof, fence, ramada, wall, shed, vehicle — before it moves, if there is any chance of an insurance claim; the adjuster wants the scene, not the pile. Then clear the driveway and the gate so a truck can reach the rest. Everything else can wait a day, and in a Tucson August it may have to, because every hauler and tree service in the county is answering the same phone.
Sort the debris into three piles, because they go three places
Green waste — limbs, brush, dead cactus, palm fronds, the whole tree. Bulky and light. Los Reales takes it at normal rates, $18 for a covered load under 2,000 pounds plus the $2 fee, and a truck of loose brush will not stay in the truck uncovered. The Catalina Transfer Station on N. Oracle Road lists yard and green waste; the WM Marana Regional Landfill does too; Tank’s Speedway facility on E. Speedway is built around landscape waste. Inside the city, Brush and Bulky takes brush cut to five feet and under 24 inches in diameter, and cactus boxed under 25 pounds, on your scheduled week only.
Construction debris — fence panels and posts, roof tiles, the collapsed patio cover, the shed roof, broken outdoor furniture. Los Reales accepts it; Brush and Bulky refuses construction material, glass and mirrors. Heavier, so it may be priced by weight past 2,000 pounds.
Inert material — the mud, rock and gravel a flash flood pushes through a yard when the wash decides to run through the lot. Brush and Bulky refuses dirt, stones, rocks and gravel. It is clean fill, and the Tank’s land reclamation sites and the Drexel Road facility east of Houghton are built for it, usually cheaper by the ton than the landfill.
Storm debris cleanup in Tucson, in the right order
- Utility first if a line is involved; do not cut a limb on a line.
- Photograph all damage before anything moves.
- Clear the driveway and the gate.
- Sort into green waste, construction debris and inert material.
- Inside the city, check your Brush and Bulky week; if it is close, cut the brush to five feet, box the cactus and stack it three feet from the bins by 6 a.m. that Monday.
- Quote a hauler by pile, so green waste is priced by the truck and the heavy material by weight — published ranges run $300 to $550 for a half truck and $600 to $900 for a full one.
- Keep the landfill and inert-site receipts for the claim.
Never into the wash, and never onto the lot next door
After a flood the wash looks like the natural place for the limbs that came out of it. Pima County makes it unlawful to dump or deposit solid waste anywhere but an approved site, and a wash is where the next storm collects everything in it and delivers it to a culvert, a bridge or a neighbor’s block wall at speed. Debris already in the wash — a fence section, a trampoline — is worth pulling out before the next cell for the same reason. A hauler who offers to “take it up the road” for a suspiciously low price is telling you where other people’s storm debris went.
Before the season, in June
The cheapest storm cleanup is the one that is smaller because the tree was thinned in June. Dead wood and crossing limbs come down in a microburst first; a tree service will say what to remove and a hauler will take the cuttings, or Brush and Bulky will if the week falls right. Secure or store the shade sail and the patio umbrella — they are the first things over the wall. Check that the wash on or beside the property is clear of last year’s debris. And know your Brush and Bulky week for the second half of the year, because it decides whether August’s cleanup is free or paid. Yard waste and storm cleanup is the service page for the paid part.
Questions this guide gets asked
Will the city do an extra Brush and Bulky after a big storm? The published program is the scheduled one, twice a year by service area, plus special pickups on request. Ask Environmental Services; do not plan on it.
How fast can a hauler come after a storm? Slower than usual — the whole county is calling. Say whether the debris is blocking access or just ugly; the first gets priority.
Does insurance pay for debris removal? Ask your adjuster; policies differ. Photographs before cleanup and the receipts after are what the claim needs either way.
The tree is on the roof. Who do I call? A tree service, with the utility line in mind, before a junk hauler. Getting it off the structure is tree work; hauling the pieces is junk work.