County, city still working on Hurricane Irma debris removal

County residents could still be staring at piles of Hurricane Irma’s storm debris in early 2018. 

City residents should be rid of the mess by Thanksgiving. 

In all, about 300,000  cubic yards of debris was left behind by the hurricane that passed east of Sarasota County on the weekend of Sept. 9. Crews have been working for weeks to clear the piles. The city estimates that its storm debris pickup will be completed by the end of November. For the county, the time frame is more like December at the earliest, and March at the latest.

The city has finished its first pass for debris removal, and is in its second and final pass now. When that’s completed, officials expect to have picked up 55,000 cubic yards of debris. By comparison, a typical dump truck can carry about 10-15 cubic yards of material.

As the final pass gets started, regular yard waste rules now apply: Residents must place materials in a container or bundle into 4-foot lengths or less; bundles must weigh less than 50 pounds; it can’t mix with non-vegetative storm debris, household items or recycling. Leaves and small vegetative debris must be in a container.

On the other hand, the county is dealing with almost five times the amount of debris as the city. More than 130,000 cubic yards of debris have already been picked up out of an estimated 250,000 cubic yards total from Irma.

60 trucks of contractors and county employees are working on completing the first sweep in unincorporated parts of the county, and are working all over.

Wendi Crisp, the county’s Public Information Officer for Storm Debris Recovery, said that residents should make sure their debris piles are easily accessible, away from mailboxes and utility lines.

“That will make the process go faster,” she said.

Tipping fees are still being waived at the landfill, for residents who want to drop off their own storm debris.

The county’s storm debris removal process got a slow start, in part from issues with contractors.

In September, the county saw what Emergency Services Director Rich Collins called a “resource issue,” as contractors were moving south, where rates were higher than those outlined in pre-hurricane contracts.

Early in October, Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a subpoena for one of the county’s debris removal contractors, AshBritt, Inc. The attorney general is investigating AshBritt and two other companies for allegations that they were failing to perform at contracted rates, were slow to perform under contracts or weren’t performing until higher prices were negotiated.

Further, the county had initial trouble gaining access to private roads, which requires that homeowners associations fill out a form to give the county permission to perform the work. According to Crisp, that approval process is still in the works, but should be completed for the whole county “in the near future.”

In addition to needing permission to go on the roads in the first place, the county also needed authorization from FEMA to be reimbursed for that labor, which has since been granted.

“We really do appreciate their continued patience,” Crisp said. “We know it’s a long process. There’s a lot of debris out there.”