In 2020, Tuten Park in Lake Charles, LA lost 80 percent of its trees as a result of Hurricane Laura. The City of Lake Charles hired RES to perform restoration activities on site. We began by removing dead and undesirable trees and piling debris. Our team used mechanical mulching on the hurricane damaged understory of the land. We also performed post-construction and pre-emergent herbicide applications. After the site was cleaned up, our team arranged six different tree planting events—installing more than 1,000 native trees at the Park.

Two months after the work was completed, ecologists visited the site to perform a habitat evaluation of the Park. Ecologists observed bottomland hardwood species, herbaceous vegetation, soils, and wildlife within the park. From an ecological perspective, the park is representative of a bottomland hardwood forest with an understory, midstory, and overstory present creating diverse habitat for wildlife.