When Polk County residents braced themselves for Nicole, many of them were still recovering from Hurricane Ian.
“The biggest problems were fallen trees and flooding of houses. Furniture, carpets,” said Demitri Kelly of Precision Junk Removal. “Many people are destroying houses and walls and everything is crumbling.”
Hurricane Ian rocked the city quite a bit. Polk County officials say he has at least 75 trucks driving through the city each day picking up damage left by Ian. They hired AshBritt Inc. to help clean up the county.
“To date, we have collected 700,000 cubic yards of plant debris across the county,” said Rob Ray, senior vice president of AshBritt.
“For visual impact, we need to place nearly 20,000 40-cubic-yard bins across the county to collect the vast amount of debris that AshBritt’s subcontractors have historically collected in Polk County.”
Having visited the sandbag site in Auburndale just hours before Tropical Storm Nicole turned into a hurricane, I noticed people were more nervous this time around. Hurricane she was just before Ian hit.
“We weren’t prepared for the last hurricane. The whole house was flooded – the yard, the trees,” said David Howell. “I just want to keep my house from flooding, so I’m trying to prepare for the worst.”
Howell and his family were among the few who were at the sandbag site that day.
Hurricane Nicole didn’t cause as much damage to the county as Hurricane Ian, but people who spoke with Spectrum Bay News 9 said Ian always reminded them to prepare for worse.
The Polk County Commission issued this press release on November 7th.
After 35 days of hurricane debris collection from Ian, AshBritt, Inc., a Polk County contract carrier, has collected 723,476 cubic yards of FEMA-registered debris, or approximately 180,869 tons of debris, at its debris management site.
Approximately 75 tandem trucks with two hitches drive the county daily. When the county began collecting on his October 3rd, the truck started in the southern part of the county and is now heading northeast. Residents will begin to see an even more intense concentration of trucks from the city of Haines to Poinciana this week.
Deputy County Manager Ryan Taylor said: “All routes have been mapped by TetraTech, a debris hauling monitoring service. In many areas, tandem trucks cannot enter narrow streets, narrow cul-de-sacs, or streets with dead ends. The truck is too long to move.In these conditions, we cannot collect the debris until a small truck becomes available.”
Residents are also picking up debris These claw trucks cannot move obstacles such as power lines, low tree canopies, cars parked on the street, or permanent objects such as trees, mailboxes and fences. Remember, if plant debris is mixed with fences, construction materials, and household items, it won’t be picked up until the final pass. Leaves, moss and small twigs should be bagged for collection.
A second pass of debris collection begins the week after Thanksgiving and travels through Polk County from north to south.
When debris is collected, Polk County also requires that it be cleaned of any leftover leaves or small sticks that may have been left on the road.
