Wydown's Halloween Will Run on Borrowed Light. The New Trees Arrive on the Side Streets First.

Seventeen months after the May 16, 2025 tornado, the repair that is easiest to see in Clayton will come to the quieter blocks first. Between November and March, the City plans its first round of replacement trees on streets like Aberdeen Place, Crestwood Drive and Wydown Terrace. The Wydown Boulevard median, which more people pass than any other part of the recovery, only had its construction bids opened on October 14. Some of the streetlights along it still don't work.

That order shapes what you'll see on your walks through spring.

Halloween on Wydown needs rented light

The clearest sign of where things stand is a one-page memo in the City Council's October 13 packet. City Manager David Gipson and Public Works Director Matt Malick wrote that tornado damage "has left portions of the Moorlands neighborhood and Wydown Boulevard without functioning streetlights." Their answer for trick-or-treat night was portable light towers.

The request for council action sets out the plan:

• How many: about 30 to 35 portable towers, each lighting roughly half an acre. Staff noted that "small gaps will remain between coverage areas."
• Cost: about $13,650 based on earlier pricing. Staff asked for authority to spend up to $15,000, including delivery, setup and pickup. The memo calls it an unbudgeted expense.
• Who runs it: the vendor would deliver, position and remove the units, with no City staff needed.
• Fallback: if the vendor can't supply enough towers, staff would look for a second vendor or focus lighting on "intersections and other key pedestrian crossing points."

Approval was up to the council. The motion appeared on the October 13 agenda as "Authorizing temporary lighting in tornado impacted areas for Halloween." If you live in the Moorlands or along Wydown, plan on darker blocks than usual. If the towers go up as the memo describes, expect light concentrated at the corners and gaps between them.

The towers are a stopgap because the permanent fix is still months out. The City's one-year recovery update counts about 150 to 170 damaged light poles and fixtures across nine circuits. It puts the repair at $2.3 million, with construction planned from August 2026 through March 2027, and says replacement lights will match the originals "in kind and type." That update also says the streetlight work is being coordinated with the median project. The median's own schedule has slipped.

The median schedule has slipped

In the City's One Year Later recovery update, the Wydown Median Restoration was split into two phases. Street lighting was to be built August through October 2026. Trees, plants and irrigation would follow from September 2026 through June 2027. The estimated cost was $1.7 million. By the City's own description, it is "one of the most visible and complex recovery projects."

Here is the timeline so far this fall:

The October lighting deadline and the bid opening fall in the same month. A project can't be finished on schedule when its contractor hasn't been chosen yet.

The invitation to bid shows how much rebuilding the median needs. The work includes "site demolition and removals, protection of existing trees and improvements, grading and soil preparation, planting, turf, irrigation, site lighting, concrete and site furnishings." It also falls under federal FEMA contracting rules, which bring their own paperwork and flow-down requirements. The median's irrigation is part of a larger job. The City plans to replace the whole public irrigation system along Wydown, from University Drive to the city limits, at an estimated $329,000. The recovery page gives two end dates for that work: June 2027 in the project description and March 2027 in the summary table.

The tree plan settles what the median will look like next spring. "Trees in the Wydown median, east of University, are excluded and will be planted under a seperate contract in 2027." So the stretch of Wydown people know best stays a work site through this winter.

The side streets get trees this winter

The citywide replanting is the part of the recovery that will show up soonest. The City has identified 595 trees to replace outside the Wydown median project. It reports the $278,000 contract as awarded, and the City Forester picked each species "with careful attention to diversity and long-term canopy health." The Tree Restoration Planting Plan, dated May 7, 2026, expects Year 1 planting from November 2026 through March 2027. It sends half of each year's planting to what it calls Zone 1.

The plan's address list is specific enough to check your own block. Here are the Year 1 entries on the streets that come up most often:

• Aberdeen Place: among others, ginkgo, river birch, white oak, sugar maple, yellowwood, Kentucky coffeetree, Japanese zelkova, eastern redbud, chinkapin oak, dawn redwood, shantung maple and willow oak.
• Crestwood Drive: mostly oaks, including swamp chestnut, swamp white, chinkapin, Nuttall, white and cherrybark, plus a tulip tree at No. 29.
• Wydown Terrace: a katsura at No. 27 and a Japanese tree lilac at No. 5.
• South Central Avenue, 500 and 600 blocks: swamp chestnut oak, American beech, Yoshino cherries, sugar maple, and a star magnolia listed for the median at No. 619.
• Wydown Boulevard, 6300 to 6500 blocks: white oaks, a swamp white oak, Kwanzan cherries, a Frontier elm, northern catalpas, Osage oranges at No. 6369, a pecan at No. 6462, and a cluster of dawn redwoods and ginkgos at No. 6500, some listed as front-yard trees and some as median trees.

The list matters for anyone who already knows their street. On the oak-heavy blocks of Crestwood Drive, today's saplings will grow into a canopy over time. Aberdeen Place is getting one of the widest mixes in the plan. Its Year 1 entries name more than a dozen species, including catalpa, cucumber magnolia and pecan beyond the ones listed above, which fits the Forester's stated goal of a "diverse and resilient urban forest."

Before you call City Hall about a different tree, know that the plan says "individual requests for changes or substitutions are not being considered." The City Forester can still adjust picks based on nursery stock, new species information or site conditions. A few locations were judged unsuitable and won't get a replacement.

The plan also leaves room for timing to move. It says planting depends on "contractor scheduling, seasonal conditions, and other factors." The recovery page lists the program's yearly targets as 227 trees in 2027, 209 in 2028 and 159 in 2029. So treat November as the earliest likely start rather than a firm date.

What the next five months look like

Put the documents together and the calendar runs like this. On Halloween, Wydown and the Moorlands depend on the temporary tower lighting staff asked the council to authorize. From November into March, replacement trees go into the side streets and some Wydown Boulevard frontages. The streetlight program has a March 2027 target. The median gets its trees under a 2027 contract, after the lighting and irrigation underneath are rebuilt.

Certified arborists marked 186 trees for removal after the storm, and crews pruned another 468. City staff have removed 207 stumps, and a contract to remove 370 more was set to finish by September 30, 2026. The City estimates the total cost of recovery at about $12.6 million and is seeking FEMA reimbursement for eligible work. The council meets again at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 27, before Halloween.

One evening out this month doesn't depend on any of these schedules. Clayton's free Día de los Muertos celebration runs Saturday, October 24, from 4 to 8 p.m. on N. Brentwood Boulevard between Forsyth and Maryland. The City lists live music, folkloric dance, food, artisan vendors, altars and a Catrina procession.

If you own on Aberdeen Place, Crestwood Drive, Wydown Terrace or along Wydown itself, your block's appearance will change over the next few seasons as new trees grow in and the median is rebuilt. Your home's value can shift with it. Adam Briggs follows these Clayton streets block by block. Request a personalized home valuation with Adam to see where your property stands as the recovery moves forward.