DES MOINES, Iowa — Des Moines Parks and Recreation say that vandals destroyed about 30 of their 77 parks the past few days with fireworks, eight more than the year before.
The vandals left debris and used fireworks behind, but also burned trash cans, sidewalks and trails.
“We initially didn’t realize how much this was going to add up," said DSM Parks and Rec assistant director Jenny Richmond.
For reference, vendors can sell commercial fireworks to people in Iowa's capital city, but the city prohibits the use of them all-together in city lines.
However, that didn't stop the people who illegally set off fireworks.
The damage was so extensive that Parks and Rec had to send their maintenance crews out to the parks to clean up everything, outside of their normal jobs like cleaning restrooms, maintaining trails and emptying trash cans.
Crews spent more than 100 hours cleaning up dozens of parks.
"It takes away from folks being able to enjoy all those wonderful public spaces, while they are getting cleaned up and repaired," Richmond said.
The total destruction will cost the city over $4,000 to repair the damaged areas, with those funds coming from staff salaries.
Richmond said the firework vandalism began a few days before Tuesday, but when will these parks be back to normal?
“We hope it will be done [Thursday]," she explained. "We hope all of the cleanup that has happened during the day [Thursday] will lead to clean parks [Friday].”
However, that all depends on whether or not people stop shooting off fireworks on park property.
Des Moines police Sgt. Paul Parizek told Local 5 there have been no arrests made with these incidents, and the investigation remains ongoing.