MOUNT VERNON — The wreckage of Sunday’s storm left Knox Countians with a lot of cleanup and repair to do. Leaves, branches and broken wood was stacked high at the Knox County landfill on Monday afternoon.

Larry Glancy unloaded large branches of a shade tree that used to be in front of his Mount Vernon home.

“All this is from my yard,” he said, pulling a thick branch from his truck to heave into the pile.

Glancy received a lot of help from family and neighbors.

“They helped me clean mine up, and then I helped clean theirs,” he said, adding that he anticipated making several more trips to the landfill.

The aftermath of the storm left many people surprised.

“I didn’t think it would be this bad, but you never know with mother nature,” said Glancy. “A lot of people don’t have their own chain saw. They will have to hire someone to come in to do it.”

“It’s pretty bad around here,” said Tom Williams, a member of the utility staff for Mount Vernon City Schools. “This is my fourth truckload; I’ll have at least 10 more.”

Williams has been working at the school, cleaning out the fallen branches and even a few large trees.

“But we are surviving, trying to make it safe for the kids,” he said.

Almost everyone has been affected by the windstorm which came through on Sunday. Those who could not get to work or school because of blocked roads and power outages, used the time off to clean up and make necessary repairs.

“We’ve been going at it since 8 this morning,” said Dan Heffernan, a Mount Vernon resident.

Returning to the landfill to drop off his fourth load of debris, he had three little helpers; his two grandchildren and one of their friends.

“One load was mine and the rest is from my son’s place,” said Heffernan. “It’s a mess at [my son’s] place. It brought down his powerline.”

The Knox County landfill area will be open through Saturday at 4 p.m., at which time it will return to regular hours of operation.

Tree branches and leaves can be brought to the landfill, said Allen Stockberger, Knox County Commissioner.

“We do ask them to dump the leaves out so we don’t have the plastic bags there, because they will not biodegrade,” he said.

The commissioners ask that only biodegradable yard waste be taken to the compost area, and nothing more than 10 inches in diameter.