To date, Columbia County has collected approximately half of the debris from Hurricane Helene, which is about three million cubic yards of debris.
That’s according to Engineering Services Director Kyle Titus, who said there’s still around three million cubic yards of debris left for an estimated total of six million cubic yards of debris.
When the clean up first started, the county was picking up around 25,000 cubic yards of debris from the right of way per day. However, that increased in the last 45 days, with the county picking up approximately 45,000 cubic yards per day from the right of way, Titus said.
He explained why some debris piles might be skipped, and that’s because it has non-storm generated debris in it. This includes residual debris, such as leaf litter and twigs, household trash, such as damaged fences or substantial green debris, which shows the item has not been dead long, the pile would be ineligible for pick up. Green debris is debris that has not been dead long. Titus added that moving debris that isn’t abutting the property it originated on is prohibited.
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“If you have questions about why debris hasn’t been picked up in front of my house, please be patient with us, we’re working to get to you as fast as we can,” Titus said. “If you have any questions regarding the eligibility of debris, this was storm generated, but I’m scared you aren’t going to pick it up, call 311 or the department of engineering, we will send someone out to take a look….there will likely be a lot of calls, please be patient with the response time.”
Titus also broke down the numbers when it came to debris removal. He said there is one debris monitoring company, one disaster recovery contractor, nine subcontractors, 17 permitted debris management sites, 10 of which are active, five permitted and active debris disposal sites for final disposal, over 200 hauling units and over 500 disaster recovering personnel.
He added Columbia County has had more debris than most counties. The debris monitoring firm has 67 clients from the hurricanes Helene and Milton, and out of those, only four counties have removed over a million cubic yards of debris.
“One of those has removed 1.5 million cubic yards (and) two have removed about 2.5 million cubic yards,” Titus said. “Columbia County is the only one we know of that has removed over three million cubic yards to date. By all counts we’re more heavy equipment, hauling units, boots on the ground and more debris moved than anywhere else in the southeast.”
Titus also asked everyone to be patient as the debris removal continues. The county has been posting on the Columbia County – GA government Facebook page where the trucks will be picking up debris.
