Hurricane Sandy killed 8,577 New York City trees, which were either toppled by the storm or later brought down by cleanup crews — some drafted from as far away as Florida — including 650 in Central Park alone. Clearing the park created a pile of trunks and tree limbs 20 feet high and two blocks long, reports the New York Times. For comparison’s sake, last year’s Tropical Storm Irene last year felled less than 3,500 trees. And it surely cost a lot less than the current cleanup, which has already topped $12 million and, according to the city’s forestry director, is “rising daily.”
