JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two weeks after Hurricane Irma left a trail of devastation of across Florida, the city of Jacksonville began picking up storm debris that lines most neighborhood streets.
The city contracted with multiple companies to have trucks start hauling debris to temporary landfills around the city. Contractors will have to make multiple passes though neighborhoods because trucks can only hold so much. City officials said the whole process will take several weeks and urged residents to be patient.
"It is on every street, but for us, it could’ve been so bad. Could’ve been this tree or that tree on the house," said resident Eva Thornton. "City’s going to move it and we’ll get back to normal again."
Thornton lives right up the street from a temporary debris dump site on the Southside.
Contractors dumping loads every few minutes are not yet sure whether the wood will be ground up on site and hauled off, or taken whole to a larger dump site and ground up there.
For Richard Williams, the work can’t be done soon enough. He’s recovering from surgery and has struggled to get his debris to the curb, and now needs the mountain in front of his house to be taken away.
"I’ve got about three huge trees out there, plus I’ve got more on (the) side and some out back," Williams said.
Williams and Thornton know their piles of debris are eyesores that won't quickly disappear.
The city won’t provide details on what parts of town will be serviced first, but gave a generic map with the locations of the temporary dump sites strategically placed around the city. The sites are not specifically marked on the map because the city wants the locations to stay secret. It doesn't want people show up and try to dump their own debris while the contractors are working.
What's piled curbside is not just trees, branches and other vegetative debris. There's also building materials that were flooded, furniture and even appliances.
City officials remind residents that construction debris needs to be piled separately from the vegetative debris, which is all separate from household garbage.
The piles need to be 3 feet apart and away from power poles.
San Marco resident Shannon Kinney said the only thing taken from her curb since the storm has been the weekly garbage pickup.
"The garbage they are (collecting), but not all the yard debris," Kinney said.
Like all her neighbors, storm debris is taking up most of the curb, so they would like to expedite things and make sure all your debris gets picked up.
Thomas Thornton has been repairing his storm-damaged fence and expects the trucks to start passing his Southpoint home frequently, since he's just down the street from one of the dumps.
"Everybody else has a whole lot, too," Thornton said.
He’s not sure how long it will be before they stop and haul off what used to be a few trees that stood in his yard.