The city is on the hook for up to an estimated $1.4 million in unplanned expenses this year to deal with removing and processing all the branches and limbs from the ice storm, officials said.
“We are entering into an agreement that should be mobilizing within 24 hours, with a minimum of five crews with grapplers and trucks picking up, and there is more if we need it,” said City Manager Brian LaBorde at the February 9th City Council meeting. “So you will basically see the equivalent of the National Guard coming in and setting up … We need to get this debris out.”
Since Winter Storm Mara hit, in addition to public works staff working overtime, the city has been contracting with Waste Management for removal services, but found they were insufficient to deal with the estimated 100,000 cubic yards of fallen tree limbs that are now collected by the curbs.
“They have haulers with grapplers, but for what they have promised us, and the amount we have had to supplement… what we have faced is not enough,” LaBorde said.
“So we have decided to go ahead with another third party that has more equipment, more personnel, more resources to go in and mobilize and pick this stuff up, and they are paid by the cubic yard.”
Effective immediately, the city has contracted with CTC Disaster Response, Inc., which specializes in debris removal and charges 6.45 cents per cubic yard collected, said Jim Gray, the city’s public works director in a subsequent interview.
Gray said it was important to move quickly on picking the branches up, due to the piles encouraging some people to dump trash on top of them, and also because they kill the grass and other landscaping in people’s yards.
“I have been through three different times of something like this, and the quicker you get it off, (the better),” he said. “If you leave it there, people tend to throw other things on top of the piles, and it gets trash instead of just brush.”
Officials are estimating an additional 45 days for all the materials to be collected and processed.
In addition, residents have the option of hauling their own branches and dropping them off at 1501 East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., free of charge, 24 hours a day.
Gray said while allocating money for all these resources is an unbudgeted expense, there is a possibility for state or FEMA reimbursement down the road if the state meets the requirements, which Baum has said is documenting at least $51.5 million in damages.
“If FEMA makes it available for reimbursement, we will pursue that,” Gray said. “That is depending on the state hitting the FEMA threshold, and if we don’t meet the FEMA threshold, and even if we don’t meet the FEMA threshold there is a possibility of state allocation.”
Still, Gray said the city cannot count on that.
“If you get reimbursed, that’s great, but you don’t kind of go into it thinking I am going to be reimbursed because you may not be,” he said.
