Cities, counties still cleaning up Hurricane Ian debris: ‘Just be patient. We’re coming’
Local crews and third-party contractors have put a dent in piles of browning tree limbs, sticks and leaves stacked outside homes alongside soggy furniture, carpet and bedding in the weeks following Hurricane Ian’s landfall.
But persistent flooding in some areas slowed initial debris collection — adding unprecedented totals of damaged household items — and has made some parts of Seminole and Osceola counties unreachable for collection crews.
Across Central Florida, solid waste managers say clean-up efforts will take weeks, if not longer, to finish. Some haulers have reported to local governments they’ve faced lines at landfills, delaying them.
“There was far more debris [caused by Hurricane] Irma,” said Joseph England, Orlando’s assistant solid waste division manager. “What sort of replaced Irma’s impact this year with Ian was the amount of flooding and the amount of bulk household items that were damaged.”
The same is true in Seminole County, where Hector Valle, the solid waste manager, said his office is bombarded with calls from people frustrated their piles haven’t been picked up. Earlier this month, the county said on Facebook that cursing at or calling phone operators names “will not be tolerated and will not expedite service.”
Valle said he watches daily a small army of about 142 people on more than 80 trucks and trailers working 12 to 14 hours a day to clean up the mess.
Flooding in Geneva neighborhoods along Lake Harney has prevented crews from accessing that debris, and in areas where water recently receded, slowed the response, he said.
“There are many areas that we cannot get to at this point,” he said. “The public needs to be patient. They’re going as fast as they can.”
But so far, they’ve picked up about a quarter of the vegetative debris, and expect to have close to 40% done by the end of the week.
“We predict to have in the vicinity of 800,000 cubic yards of material,” he said. “It’s staggering.”
It’s expected to take six to eight weeks to get it all picked up, Valle said. By the time they’re done, Valle said he suspects about 40% of the total collected will be household items.
In Orange County — where assessors have verified more than 1,700 properties sustained damage, totaling more than $206 million — the debris is widespread.
The Orange County Landfill took in about 8,700 tons of yard waste from Oct. 1 to Oct. 19, a 65% increase from the same time period last year, said Debbie Sponsler, an Orange County spokesperson.
Contractors working for the county have picked up more than 45,000 cubic yards of debris, and project the final total will be about 100,000 cubic yards, said Ralphetta Aker, manager of fiscal and operational support for Public Works.
In suburban Orange County, Winter Park and Maitland, crews have collected most of Hurricane Ian’s wreckage.
Winter Park solid waste removers were wrapping up their first pass through neighborhoods this week and collected about 12,000 cubic yards prior to this week, while in Maitland, most neighborhoods have been picked up, totaling 9,000 cubic yards.
Osceola, also battling flooding along the Shingle Creek basin, got three trucks from its contractor on the road this week, which picked up about 772 cubic yards between Monday and Tuesday, said Krystal Diaz, a county spokesperson.
More than 4,200 cubic yards were collected as of Wednesday in Lake County, which was scraped by Ian and avoided much of the gusty winds that blew through. Damage there has been centered in Astor, which saw flooding from the St. John’s River.
Orlando residents can track when clean-up crews will be in their neighborhood on the city’s website at orlando.gov/ian. The city has between nine and 12 crews on the road from its contractor picking up downed logs and large limbs, while its entire fleet of claw trucks is focused on furniture and construction debris. Its yard-waste trucks are collecting bagged leaves and sticks.
While after Hurricane Irma in 2017, some of its contractor crews were already working on Hurricane Harvey cleanup in Houston, crews this time around were working in Orlando by Oct. 5, England said.
England said residents can help speed up their efforts by creating separate piles of large limbs and logs, construction and household materials, and bagging small yard waste. He said he hopes crews complete an initial run through all neighborhoods by Nov. 4, and will circle back in the following weeks to collect more debris.
The city projects about 75,000 cubic yards of debris caused by Ian and has already picked up about 1,300 tons of household items.
“Just be patient. We’re coming,” he said. “If it looks like crews drove by and picked up a little and moved on, just be confident we’re coming back.”
