Winds of 130 kilometres an hour brought down hundreds of trees in Skopje. Nobody knows the exact number. The first reports spoke of 189 fallen trees, but even that figure turned out to be far too modest - around 80 fell in the Butel city cemetery alone, and in Karpoš and Aerodrom the count runs into the hundreds.

The City of Skopje has explained where all that wood goes. Fallen leaves, small branches and the rest of the plant waste are hauled to the Drisla landfill. Larger trunks and timber go to the public parks and greenery company, where they are stored and prepared for further use.

The plans are concrete: turn the timber into pavilions for Vodno, urban furniture, benches and fences. Some of it will end up as firewood for socially vulnerable families, through cooperation with the Red Crescent and the humanitarian organisation St. Spas. In the City Park, where dozens of old trees were damaged, 60 new maple and ash saplings are to be planted.

This is a well thought-out plan, and it is worth saying so when something is well thought out. A tree that has fallen and been cut up has to go somewhere anyway - better into a bench, or into the stove of a family that cannot afford firewood, than rotting in a landfill.

Still, 60 saplings against hundreds of fallen trees is a ratio that says something on its own. Maples and ash trees that will throw shade like the ones that fell will need thirty to forty years. That is not a criticism of the planting - it is a reminder of how expensive every old tree you lose really is, whether you lose it to wind or to a building permit.

Five days after the storm, crews in Karpoš were still clearing. Trees blocking traffic were removed first; the ones lying in green spaces waited. The priority makes sense. But the number of trees that never came back to the city remains the one figure in this whole story that nobody has issued a statement about.