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ST. LOUIS — When a deadly tornado hit ӣ����Ƶ last month, it left an unprecedented amount of debris in its wake. The wreckage of destroyed homes spilled onto the streets. Uprooted trees blocked roads. Pieces of torn roofs blew off and landed blocks away.

In the five weeks since, city crews and contractors have collected construction and demolition material, destroyed trees, furniture, personal belongings and more — enough to fill at least 9,400 standard garbage trucks.

The job is far from over. Residents and volunteer groups have pushed what they can to the curb, into piles waiting for pickup.

“So much debris is still sitting there,” said Doug Lee, a volunteer who has spent the past month driving around the worst-hit areas giving food and supplies to residents in north ӣ����Ƶ.

Most of the damage is in north ӣ����Ƶ neighborhoods, though the tornado also ripped up trees and damaged structures in Clayton, Skinker-DeBaliviere and around and in Forest Park. Five people were killed.

Many north city residents still live surrounded by ruins and debris. Tents pitched on sidewalks and in parking lots are scattered between piles of bricks. Trees still occasionally lay across the roofs of homes. And wreckage still lines the curbs.

“If you drive down Labadie Avenue (near Kingshighway Boulevard and Natural Bridge Avenue), it looks the Twilight Zone,” Lee said. “It doesn’t even look real, it’s so bad.”

City departments have dedicated at least 27 different crews to the cleanup effort, city spokesman Rasmus Jorgensen said, and contractors are also using at least 30 trucks a day. But right now, there’s no official estimate for how much debris is left covering north ӣ����Ƶ, or how long cleanup will take.

“City workers, with tremendous help from volunteer contractors and residents, have collected enormous amounts of debris,” said Mayor Cara Spencer said in a statement Tuesday. “At the same time, we know there’s a lot more work to do, and I understand the frustration. We will keep removing debris from our neighborhoods until the work is done.”

So far, city and contractor crews have picked up 15,000 cubic yards of what they call “mixed construction and demolition debris,” including bricks, the pieces of destroyed homes and personal items, city spokesperson Rasmus Jorgensen said.

After being collected by city crews, the loads are taken to a transfer station, where they’re sorted and transported to the Roxana Landfill in Illinois, said a spokesperson for Republic Services, which runs the transfer station.

Tree service companies are taking felled trees and vegetation to ӣ����Ƶ Composting, in the Near North Riverfront area.

“It’s going to be more than another two months would be my guess,” said Patrick Geraty, the company’s president. Missouri law mandates that green waste be composted instead of going to landfills, like regular construction debris.

ӣ����Ƶ Composting has been the sole city contractor processing post-tornado tree damage. At the beginning of cleanup, immediately after the May 16 tornado, as much as 20,000 cubic yards came in daily.

The 19-acre site is full of an ever-growing number of 12-foot high piles of branches, trunks and leaves — plus rows and rows of the mulch it becomes after being composted. But even though that seems like a lot, Geraty said, it’s only the beginning.

“There’s probably been in the neighborhood of 250,000 to 300,000 cubic yards collected so far,” he said last week. “Our initial estimate had the storm debris as high as half a million cubic yards. So we’ll just have to see.”

Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arrived in ӣ����Ƶ to consult with city officials on the scope of the debris. There’s no word yet on what these new strategies will look like, said Jorgensen, the city spokesman.

And in an area where as many as 70% of affected residents are uninsured, it’s unclear how some of the damaged homes will ever be repaired or how that debris will ever be cleared.

At some of the worst-damaged sites there’s limited actions the city or its contractors can take, Jorgensen said. Some homes have been so destroyed they’re unlivable, but city workers and volunteers can’t touch what’s left because they’re private property and the owners aren’t around. They're looking at options, he said. 

For vacant buildings hit by the tornado, though, which may still be spilling debris and construction materials into the streets and neighboring properties, the city has more options. Earlier this month, the city announced it would be demolishing nearly 200 of such buildings owned by the Land Reutilization Authority.

The ӣ����Ƶ Development Corporation, which oversees the LRA, did not respond to requests for an update on the demolition program.

To help clean debris, Gov. Mike Kehoe last month deployed the Missouri National Guard to north ӣ����Ƶ. There, they set up debris collection sites, telling residents to haul their own debris to drop-off sites so it could be transported by guardsmen to local landfills.

But the Guard’s presence ended June 8, and Lee, the volunteer, said it didn’t do much to help whittle down the piles of debris still lining streets.

“When I heard they were sending 42 guys down here, I thought ‘That has to be a typo,’” he said. “Forty-two guys wouldn’t put a dent in all of this.”

Leonard Stewart, a resident of the Greater Ville neighborhood, said he and his neighbors are tired of living among the debris and damage.

“This area has been neglected,” he said.

Stewart said these days he watches people drive into his neighborhood for a look at the tornado devastation. They slow down, he said, but then drive on.