'A pretty good fence business day'

It was, in the words of Rudy Garcia of west Greeley, "a pretty good fence business day."

Garcia was joined by several other Greeley and Evans residents Saturday at Lowe's and Home Depot buying material to fix fences that buckled under the gusts of 60 mph winds that roared through the region most of Friday.

Meanwhile, fees at the city of Greeley's Green-Cylce Center are being suspended so Greeley residents can clean up following high winds that hit the area , which also brought down several trees in the city.

The fees will be suspended for Greeley residents only through May 11 at the center, one mile east of U.S. 85 on 8th Street. The center is open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday accepting green waste and wood products.

For more information about acceptable materials and fees, call the center during hours of operation at (970) 590-4768, or from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, call the city's natural resources division at (970) 350-9833.

Garcia stopped by Lowe's, 2400 47th Ave., late Saturday afternoon to pick up a new post for the a portion of his fence, noting "there were also a lot of trees down" in his 44th Avenue neighborhood.

Inside, Lorrie Poss was picking up fencing material while her husband, John, was at home picking up debris and digging new holes for three or four sections of fence that blew down.

"And we only moved into the home a month ago," she said.

Poss had bought three new fence posts, a couple of boxes of nails, a bag of Quikrete and 25-30 new pieces of fencing wood.

"That wind just hit it, and down it went. It just laid down," she said of the fence at the home in the 2100 block of 26th Avenue Court.

At The Home Depot, 2815 35th Ave., Michael Buck of Evans was on his second trip of the day, and had eight sacks of concrete mix, some cinder blocks, fence posts and several replacement pieces.

"You'd think I could get all this in one trip, but no, I had to come a second time," Buck said. He said he lost two sections of fence in the winds, but once he got to work replacing those, he discovered that much more of the home's fence had rotted and was not long for this world.

"I just figured I might as well replace it all now and maybe, just maybe, it will last the rest of my lifetime," he said with a shrug.

* This story was updated May 5, 2008 to reflect the following correction:

Fees for the Greeley's Green-Cylce Center will be waived for Greeley residents only through May 11. The date was incorrect in Sunday's edition of the Tribune.