Last updated July 2026
Cherry Hill has a storm resume. When Ida’s remnants came through on September 1, 2021, they put an EF-3 tornado on the ground one county over in Gloucester County — New Jersey’s first EF-3 since 1990 — while Cherry Hill itself logged trees and wires down across town. The June 2012 derecho knocked out 206,000 South Jersey customers, some for the better part of a week. With the Atlantic’s busiest stretch (mid-August through mid-October) coming up, it’s worth knowing in advance how the cleanup week actually goes — because the order you do things in matters more than most people think.
Here’s the week after a big storm, day by day.
The storm passes, and the instinct is to start dragging limbs. Don’t — not until you’ve walked the property and confirmed nothing electrical is hiding in the mess. Downed wires disappear into brush piles, and PSE&G’s rule is simple: assume every downed wire is live, stay at least 30 feet away — about two pole spans — and call 911. Their downed power line page spells it out. Report outages at 1-800-436-PSEG (7734) or by texting OUT to 4PSEG (47734).
Day 1 is also when official information matters most. Cherry Hill pushes emergency updates through Nixle — text CHTWP to 888777 — and Camden County runs its own alert system, with signup online. If you’re reading this on a calm day in July, register now; nobody signs up for alerts by candlelight.
So Day 1’s only jobs: walk the property with your phone camera, stay clear of anything near a wire, and note what fell where.
Those photos are money. If anything hit the house, the fence, or the shed, homeowners insurance generally covers the repair and removal of the tree that did it — but the debris-removal piece is usually capped somewhere around $500 to $1,000, and adjusters want to see the tree where it landed. Shoot wide shots and close-ups before a single cut is made. A tree that fell in the open yard without hitting anything is a different story: most policies won’t pay to remove it at all.
One sentence on the neighbor question, because it comes up after every storm: if their tree landed on your house, the claim still normally runs through your policy — confirm the details with your agent, since none of this is insurance advice.
Cherry Hill’s everyday yard-waste rules are strict (more on those below), but there’s a precedent worth knowing: after major storms, the township has offered special debris collections with relaxed weight and bundling rules — it did exactly that after the July 2023 storms. Whether one is running after your storm takes a single call to Public Works at (856) 424-4422.
Two limits have held even during those special collections: crews take piles you’ve moved to the curb — they don’t remove trees from private property — and contractor or construction debris stays excluded no matter what. If a roofer or fence company generates the debris, hauling it away is their job.
If no special collection is running, the standard rules apply, and they’re specific: branches cut to 4 feet or less, bundled and tied, under 50 pounds per bundle; trunk sections no more than 2 feet long and 6 inches across, under 50 pounds, stacked at the curb; no plastic bags. The township keeps the specs on its current guidelines page.
Read those numbers against what’s actually on your lawn. A bundle-able branch is one thing; a maple limb the size of a telephone pole is another. Whatever fits the rules, cut, bundle, and stage for your regular collection day — our Cherry Hill bulk pickup guide covers the normal-times system in detail, including what the bulk truck will and won’t take. Whatever doesn’t fit the rules goes in the Day 6 pile. And remember: shingles, fascia, deck boards, and anything else that counts as construction debris never rides with township collection, storm or no storm.
By the weekend you’re staring at the remainder — trunk rounds over 6 inches, the root ball, the crushed section of fence, maybe a waterlogged rug from the room that leaked. You have two honest options: spend the next month cutting and bundling fifty-pound packages, or have one truck make it all disappear in an afternoon. We’ll be direct about which one we sell: you point, we lift, we load, we sweep up, and the lawn is a lawn again — usually within a day or two of your call.
One warning for storm week specifically. Big storms bring pickup trucks trolling the neighborhood for cleanup cash, and in New Jersey, hauling someone else’s debris for money legally requires an NJDEP A-901 license and solid waste transporter registration — compliant trucks display NJDEP decals. Ask for the A-901 license number before the tailgate drops; if the answer is a shrug, keep your debris. Loads that get dumped in the woods have a way of being traced back to the homeowner who paid for the “bargain.”
Storm cleanup in Cherry Hill is a sequence, not a scramble: wires first, photos second, one phone call to the DPW third, the bundle-able stuff fourth, and a hauler for the rest. Do it in that order and the week after the storm is annoying instead of expensive. And if you’d rather skip straight to “handled,” request your free estimate — storm debris is heavy, and doing the heavy lifting is the entire point of us.
Details summarized from Cherry Hill Township, PSE&G, and insurance-industry guidance as of July 2026. Not insurance advice. Confirm current collection rules with Cherry Hill Public Works at (856) 424-4422.
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