LAKEWOOD, Colo. (KDVR) — Clean up began in the metro area and foothills after a snowstorm caused damage to trees and took out power for thousands of residents.

Many residents were out on neighborhood streets dealing with downed trees and broken branches and limbs Saturday morning.

“We’ve gotten snow like this at this time in your past, but this was a different type of snow than what we’ve had now. While this was such a heavy, wet snow,” Paul Fleischer with Fleischer Family Farm said.  

The farm in Lakewood was being cleaned up but the trees and plants are the business’ livelihoods. Branches carrying produce that it sells to make a profit were weighed down by heavy snow which caused them to crack under pressure. 

“We had a number of our apple trees that snapped in half last night a bunch of armature trees got so heavy their branches fell off in our fields and killed some of our vegetables. That’s going to be our major cleanup,” Fleischer said. “We had a substantial amount of tree debris fall on that field and knocked out a ton of our brassicas, so it sets us back a few weeks. I think we lost at least half of them.” 

Knowing that they’ll have to cover the costs to clean up and replant, they decided to hold their farmstand market event despite the snow.   

“The snow, I’m sure, it scared a few people away and when we did our opening day, in the past years past, we had quite a line to start the day and we didn’t this morning,” Fleischer said. “So we were nervous, but since the first customer came, it’s been a pretty steady stream.”  

If there wasn’t enough on the farm’s plate, the power shut off so it had to turn its generators on. This is an effort to keep the greenhouse’s heaters still operating and hope it prevents seedlings from freezing. Gas is costly at the moment as well.  

Like many of us, the farms say they’ll have to wait until the snow melts completely to get a better idea of how their plants in the ground faired.