13 On Your Side: How to deal with storm damage | News

KENTWOOD, Mich. (WZZM)- Homeowners in West Michigan are cleaning up the mess after Monday's storms. For many, it meant filing insurance claims, which can be very confusing.

"Shocked. We've been here 20 years and we've never seen anything like this," says Mike Armstrong. He came home from work Monday afternoon to several trees down in his yard in Kentwood. "Yeah, everybody on the street here was in the same boat. What do we do?"

The neighbors first called their insurance companies. In Mike's case, the trees that fell into his yard weren't his. It was the number one question for Lynn Mulder at Lighthouse Insurance. She says in Mike's case, you're on your own. "If your tree falls into your neighbor's yard, your responsible to clean up your portion, your neighbor is responsible to clean up the portion in his yard."

Armstrong started to clean-up the mess. He quickly realized that it was too much. "Too overwhelming. I took one truckload. I probably got 20 more." Armstrong ended up hiring a professional tree trimming company to do the work. It will cost him about $600 to clean up. "I never dreamed that coming home, It would come home to this."

The city of Kentwood has opened a brush site at 4700 Kalamazoo Street. It's open from 12 to 8pm, through Saturday. An I.D. is required at the site.