Hurricane debris removal will take months

Vastly different types of impact from back-to-back hurricanes have left a debris field stretching hundreds of miles from southwest Florida to the North Carolina mountains and a wide swath across Central Florida from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic beaches.

It will all take months, not days or weeks, to clean it all up. 

Coastal communities barely had time to mobilize cleanup efforts from Hurricane Helene’s historic storm surge when they had to cease operations and brace for landfall of Hurricane Milton, which followed Helene’s ground saturation with Category 3 winds, scattering mounds of construction and residential debris while uprooting massive trees, pulling up water lines along with them.

That leaves communities competing for a finite number of debris removal companies to address historic volumes of debris.

City officials have heard plenty of complaints from residents and business owners about lingering debris piled up along the streets. Deputy City Manager Patrick Robinson said the city is working as fast as it can with the resources it has available.

“All of our public works and solid waste crews worked very diligently and as expeditiously as they could to remove as much of the vegetative and storm damage debris as possible between Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton,” Robinson said. “The staff was stretched thin between that time period while continuing our regular operations. To supplement our crews, however, we were are competing with all of the other governmental agencies to get these contractors to our area.”

Not just locally or even regionally, Robinson said. Widespread damage over multiple states leaves cleanup something of a national dilemma, and one that won’t be resolved as quickly as many might prefer.

“The city did have contractors working as quickly as possible to pick up as much storm debris as possible before the arrival of Hurricane Milton,” said Sarasota Mayor Liz Alpert. “There were hundreds of homes and businesses that needed pickup, which would be an operation normally taking months, not weeks. Given the time frame between the two hurricanes, it was just not operationally possible to remove all of it. Every other community had the same situation.”

Photo by Monica Roman Gagnier

Storm debris collection started Saturday, Oct. 5 for Hurricane Helene on Lido Key — two days earlier than expected. A special impact pickup occurred early Sunday morning, Oct. 6 ,on St. Armands Circle and Golden Gate Point. 

According to Robinson, debris removal contractors worked to collect street side materials up until just before Milton struck. That’s when Sarasota County closed the landfill and contractors moved assets out of harm’s way to ride out the storm. 

Robinson likened the one-two punch of Helene and Milton to the Category 4 Hurricane Charley and the damage left behind in Charlotte County in 2004, when he was working as a law enforcement officer there.

“Helene didn't even make direct strike outside of the storm surge and Milton was a Category 3 when it made landfall, and that was all wind,” Robinson said. “We had this compounding issue of a storm surge where we had anywhere between four and six-and-a-half feet, and then we had upwards of 110 to 120 miles-per-hour wind less than two weeks later when the ground was soft and it leveled hundreds of trees and broke multiple water lines.”

That is among the reasons water service restoration to the barrier islands was delayed as Public Works personnel worked in cooperation with Parks and Recreation staff to cut uprooted trees away from damaged lines. Water service to the barrier islands was turned off in advance of Milton to protect the infrastructure from salt water intrusion, affecting some 7,000 customers.

Nine water main breaks were repaired.

Water service problems persisted on St. Armands Key on Tuesday as undetected water leaks quickly drained water tanks soon after service was restored on Monday.

According to an email from the Office of the City Manager, the city will attempt valve-by-valve line closures in order to identify the source in hopes of avoiding a complete shutdown of service to the key.

Historic damage

When Tropical Storm Debby passed by in August, some 150 homes on the east side of the city saw rain-related flooding as creeks left their banks, according to Robinson, and Helene’s storm surge swamped upwards of 500 homes with three to four feet of water.

Photo by Monica Roman Gagnier

“The amount of drywall and furniture that was put out on the curb is something I've never seen before,” Robinson said of Helene’s aftermath. 

Compound that with the Category 3 winds of Milton, felling hundreds of trees, compounding the debris removal challenges.

“I haven't seen this many trees down during a wind event hurricane since Hurricane Charley,” Robinson said. “This recovery will be massive and is not going to take weeks. This will take months to get the volume of debris that's out there, but we're committed to putting assets on the streets and making sure that it gets out of there as soon as possible.”

“We know this is a horrific situation for so many people and want to make sure we can recover as quickly as possible, but we’re asking that our residents be patient,” Alpert said. “We will get it done.”

Getting it done comes with challenges. The city activated all three of its emergency storm debris contracts, and following Milton, crews began returning to to finding no electricity in many locations places and limited gasoline supplies. To. bring more assistance requires contractors’ equipment to be certified by regulatory agencies before collection can begin. 

Collection is expected to resume soon with an announcement in the coming days.