Why storm debris removal is needed in Crows Landing
Storm debris removal at Crows Landing is mostly farm-building material and old house fabric. The community is primarily single-family homes with agricultural warehouses and packing sheds along Highway 33 and the tracks, and the census estimates, wide-margined at this size, put 52 of about 208 units at 1939 or earlier, 43 in the 1940s and 33 in the 1950s, with 31 mobile homes. Roofing, siding and flooring of that age can hold asbestos, and 40 CFR 61.145 requires the inspection on any building that is not a small residence.
There is nowhere for water to go here, so what it leaves has to be lifted. The County's study records no storm drainage system at all: drainage is mainly roadside percolation, with no pipelines and no detention ponds, and most of the community has no curbs, gutters, sidewalks or streetlights. At the Newman normals station, the nearest, December, January and February bring 2.14, 2.66 and 2.23 inches. Silt and sodden vegetation off a roadside or a yard leave as a load of their own, weighed wet.
Old fencing and yard chemicals cannot ride in the same load as timber. CalRecycle's list of wastes banned from the trash puts treated wood under hazardous waste management and adds batteries, compressed gas cylinders and tires to the same list. On a town of septic tanks with no public sewer, nothing is rinsed or tipped on the ground either, so a mixed pile pushed together by wind is taken apart on the property before any of it is loaded.
Getting a truck in and out is part of the work here. The fire review records that crews answering calls around Crows Landing meet long narrow driveways, address markers that are hard to see, and roads that are unpaved or unimproved, and Highway 33 through town is a two-lane undivided road with a four-way stop at Fink Road. Vehicle Code section 23114 requires a load built, covered or loaded so that nothing drops, sifts, leaks, blows or spills onto the road.
A wide event is handled by agencies as well as by owners, and the two records have to match. Cal OES's Recovery Directorate describes coordinating debris removal operations in support of local jurisdictions and state entities. On 8 March 2023 an evacuation warning covered part of the area west of River Road bordered by Hills Ferry Road and Crows Landing Road. Photographs and load tickets on a private property are what tie that property's clearance to whatever else was going on.
Stanislaus County put dumpsters at 22001 G Street for a community clean-up in June 2021, ten years after the previous one. What an event leaves behind is cleared to a different standard again: split by stream, with a ticket for each load and a photograph at both ends.
Storm debris removal, as delivered in Crows Landing
Crows Landing is 20 road miles from the Modesto base, and Interstate 5 lies three miles west along Fink Road. Whatever the pile amounts to, the record made on the property is the same.
The request names the Crows Landing address, what the building is, whether wind, water or fire left the debris, the driveway or apron a truck can use and roughly how much is down. Same day or within 1 to 2 days, depending on urgency and availability. Morning or afternoon arrival windows, confirmed when the estimate is booked.
Photographs and video are taken before the first lift, with the pile where the event put it, and receipts for anything bought already are kept with them. FEMA asks for that record ahead of discarding. A wildfire-destroyed structure waits on the owner's written word that no state program applies.
Any line down is left to the utility, leaking gas and tanks are shut off, and a burned building is examined and found safe before a crew works in or around it.
Chemicals, drums and cylinders go aside for a hazardous waste handler; on a shed or a warehouse the asbestos inspection and notice come first.
Streams are split on the ground: limbs and brush, shed roofing and construction debris, treated fencing, metal and concrete, white goods, roadside silt, and burned material kept wet and wrapped for the run.
A covered load leaves by Highway 33 or Fink Road for a permitted facility that has agreed to take that stream.
Photographs from before and after, load tickets by type and destination, and any asbestos survey or air district notice close the file for the owner or the manager.
Where storm debris removal is needed in Crows Landing
Crows Landing is a short grid beside a highway and a railway, with farm ground, a river and a business park around it.
Highway 33 and the 5th Street commercial strip
The town's commercial area on the west side of the highway and along 5th Street, on lots as small as 3,750 square feet with buildings fronting the road. Glass, signage and torn roofing are staged behind the frontage, because the highway shoulder is a public right of way.
Packing sheds and warehouses along Highway 33 and the Union Pacific
Agricultural warehouses and packing sheds line the highway and the tracks the town moved beside in 1888, on land zoned for general commercial, limited industrial and agriculture. A long shed roof sheds panels and insulation across a yard, and the metal is separated for recycling.
G Street: Fire Station 56 and the civic block
The West Stanislaus district's Crows Landing station at 22012 G Street, rated poor, holding two apparatus and covered from Newman and Patterson, with the water district meeting in its conference room. Debris near the station apron is cleared first so the doors stay usable.
West 5th Street, I Street and Fink Road (south-west edge)
The 1893 church at West 5th and Fink Road stands with homes on three sides and farmland across the road, on Vernalis and Zacharias clay loams in Zone X. Material off a building of that age is checked for asbestos before it joins any load.
Bonita Avenue: Bonita Elementary and Bonita Park and Pool (north-west edge)
The town's elementary school and the one-acre park and pool across the street at the north-western edge. Debris on a school ground or in a park is fenced away from the buildings and the play area, then cleared before either reopens.
4th Street well sites
Where the community services district has proposed replacing and then upgrading its Well No. 4, with a new pump motor, control centre and telemetry. Nothing is staged over a wellhead or its apron, so a pile near one is moved to the street side before it is loaded.
East side: E Street, Armstrong Road, East 5th Street and the CCID Main Canal
The north-eastern boundary of the community, where four prefabricated steel walnut storage buildings covering 80,300 square feet stand on an orchard parcel with storm drainage retained on site. Material blown into the canal is lifted out rather than left in the channel.
Highway 33 and Fink Road / Crows Landing Road junction
The town's crossroads, a four-way stop on a two-lane highway that carried 6,000 vehicles a day on the back side in 2024, with both roads planned as future four-lane expressways. A loaded truck is sheeted and secured before it reaches this stop.
Crows Landing Industrial Business Park, former Naval Auxiliary Landing Field (Fink and Bell Roads)
Irrigated crops and two runways north-west of town, planned for aviation-compatible industry. A 2004 negative declaration proposed excavating and hauling about 6,020 cubic yards of hazardous and non-hazardous debris and soil, including potential ordnance, from Site 11 off Ike Crow Road.
San Joaquin River and the Crows Landing Road bridge (the original landing)
The river east of town, where the old bridge was found functionally obsolete and scour critical and a replacement was proposed. River debris stranded on private ground is photographed where it lies and then lifted as flood debris.
Orestimba Creek at Kilburn Road
About 2.4 miles east of town in FEMA Zone AE, with a 1890s ranch employee house at 21942 Kilburn Road and a bridge the County planned to raise. Creek silt and washed timber on a property here leave as separate streams.
Newman, Patterson and Gustine
The nearest towns, at six, eight and eleven road miles, all served by the same crews. A regional storm is worked address by address across the group, and each property keeps its own photographs, stream list and tickets.
Storm debris removal sub-services available in Crows Landing
Questions from Crows Landing property owners and managers
It is lifted rather than washed away. The County's study records drainage here as mainly roadside percolation, with no pipelines and no detention ponds, and most of the community without curbs, gutters or sidewalks. Silt and sodden vegetation are scraped up and loaded as their own stream, weighed wet, and kept apart from any roofing or fencing cleared on the same visit, because a receiving site may accept one and refuse the other.
It does. With no public sewer, nothing is hosed down, rinsed out or tipped onto the ground, and a leach field is not driven over or used to stage a load. Burned material is kept wet and wrapped on the vehicle rather than damped down on the yard, and a truck is parked on made ground where there is any. Where that is not possible, the load is built in smaller lifts.
Loose material is secured first so the next gust does not move it, and the shed is treated as a facility under the federal asbestos rule, which excludes only residential buildings of four or fewer dwelling units. Suspect sheeting or older cement board stops for inspection, the air district notice goes in before removal or demolition, and sound metal is separated for recycling while the rest is sorted by stream, the demolition debris among it.
To a permitted facility that has agreed to take burned material, arranged before a load is made up rather than settled at the gate. The debris travels wetted and wrapped with the vehicle covered along Highway 33 or Fink Road. Each gate ticket comes back into the close-out file under the Crows Landing address, with the stream and the date recorded against it.
It changes what the crew does before it starts rather than what it hauls. The station is covered from Newman and Patterson, and the fire review notes long narrow driveways and address markers that are hard to see around the town, so the access and the address are confirmed when the estimate is booked. Nothing blocks a driveway while a load is built, and the route out stays clear throughout.
No. The make-safe is the earlier job and is requested separately, through board-up and tarping at Crows Landing: the hazard zone, a limb taken off a roof, sheeting over the opening. Clearing the ground once the building is closed is this service, and on a property with a long drive the two are usually booked in sequence.
Storm debris removal near Crows Landing
