It's not pay walled so staff shouldn't mind.
Houston's Solid Waste Management director Mark Wilfalk doesn't know who took his department's chainsaws, where they are or when they were even taken.
Outside of Leatherface, it's unclear who would even want a bunch of chainsaws in Texas.
What is known is someone, somewhere in Houston now has four of the department's chainsaws.
"I just know we went to go get them, and they were not there," Wilfalk said Friday.
The missing chainsaws' discovery was made as Wilfalk's employees began the all-hands-on-deck task of cleaning up May's derecho, a storm that surprised both Houston officials and residents with its suddenness and ferocity. Fortunately, the missing chainsaws didn't cut down on recovery efforts as the city is nearing the end of cleaning up the mess the storm left behind.
HOUSTON DERECHO:The surprise storm and the split-second choices that changed everything
Wilfalk's employees were asked to use the chainsaws in its storm response. When they went to the department's Northeast facility at Kirkpartrick Boulevard and took inventory, they noticed all four of the chainsaws housed there were gone.
Solid Waste normally has Echo chainsaws on hand, Rene Schwartz, a department spokesperson said. They go for between $200 to nearly $1,200 a piece.
The department bears a heavy burden when it comes to debris cleanup, like clearing downed trees, after extreme weather events, but it doesn't appear the sudden disappearance of the chainsaws impacted storm response. Wilfalk said storm clean up is running right on schedule.
Solid Waste Management doesn't seem to be working too hard to find the missing chainsaws. Officials chose not to file a police report on the matter, citing the department's lack of information on what exactly happened or how long the chainsaws had been missing, Wilfalk said.
A Houston police spokesperson said all residents are encouraged to file a police report when a crime, chainsaw related or not, is committed, and to include as much information as possible.
Wilfalk said he doesn't know if any other city facilities were affected. His department was able to find replacement chainsaws to help in storm recovery from partners like Houston Public Works. Council Member Abbie Kamin also helped supply Solid Waste chainsaws through the Houston Tool Bank.
Wilfalk admitted the department needed to be better at keeping up with its resources, and said accountability measures have been put in place to make sure no one runs off with the department's chainsaws again.
Equipment is now stored more securely, and workers have to have a key to get it. Solid Waste also built lockers to put equipment in.
More than a month later, Solid Waste is still working on derecho cleanup efforts and will finish its first pass of pickups Sunday. City workers and contractors have been working seven days a week to get the job done and have collected 1.55 million cubic yards of debris so far that's enough to fill half of NRG Stadium. The storm left about 1.8 million cubic yards of debris, meaning less than .3 million cubic yards to go.
Solid Waste will start its second pass of storm cleanup July 8 to allow its workers to rest a bit.
It's unknown if whoever has those chainsaws will be putting in some work as well.
