Cleanup contractors will begin long process of picking up brush Tuesday
Lake City churned back to life Monday as most business corridors saw power returned after more than three days in the dark and retail stores opened their doors to customers.
Traffic was steady most of the day on U.S. 90 East and West as people crowded into town for business and to get out of their homes and into air conditioned areas with electricity.
Delivery and supply trucks also were prevalent on streets around Lake City, as restaurants cycled out food that spoiled during the power outage and were resupplied by new shipments delivered by refrigerated trucks.
Most stores and restaurants, from fast food to convenience stores to Lake City Mall saw decent foot traffic as people got away from their homes and ventured toward societal creature comforts.
By the end of the business day Monday, Florida Power & Light reported having just 708 of its nearly 14,800 customers in Columbia County still without power.
Clay Electric Cooperative’s Troy Adams told Columbia County Commissioners and staff during a storm response update meeting at the county EOC on Monday afternoon that the co-op was making headway with its restoration efforts as well.
Adams said 8,600 were still without power, 1,181 of those in the Three Rivers and Wilson Springs area that would take a more extensive system rebuild to get back online. He said Clay expected to have 95% restoration completed by Tuesday night, outside of Three Rivers.
Still, Adams said more progress would be coming soon as Clay currently had 500 linemen working in Alachua and Columbia counties and more of those assets would soon come flooding into Columbia County.
Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative, which has just 600 members out of power now in Columbia County expects to have the county 95% completed by Tuesday night as well.
Schools in Columbia County were closed on Monday, but announced they would reopen on Tuesday for schools. County road crews reported clearing brush from nearly all rural roads except for about 11% of locations with limbs and trees down near roadways and these still contained torn away power lines that needed examination by power crews before county crews could remove the debris.
“Everything in our plan is going real good,” Columbia County Assistant County Manager Kevin Kirby said Monday night. “We still have 65 locations that have power lines in them that we can’t touch until we get a power company representative to check first, for safety, before we can remove the limbs. Other than that, we are finished with our cut-and-toss operation.”
Kirby said the county’s approved contractors will begin the cleanup phase of the work Tuesday morning at daylight. To begin, the county will have eight crews made up of 30 men out collecting debris from the roadsides.
On Sunday, Kirby told commissioners to expect a record debris collection from this storm. He said Hurricane Idalia’s debris collection a year ago totaled 52,641 cubic yards of debris deposited in the county landfill. A month ago, debris from Hurricane Debby totaled 26,223 cubic yards of organic matter. Kirby told commissioners his estimation was that more than 100,000 cubic yards of organic debris would be collected from what Hurricane Helene left behind.
“At least that much, maybe more, I’m still seeing it,” Kirby said Monday. “It’s going to be a lot, the most debris from a storm we’ve ever seen.”
Kirby said everyone on his emergency response team was working the plan to perfection.
“My guys are working as a team, they are working smart, working as hard as they did on Day 1 and we are moving as quickly and as safely as possible — everybody is cooking with fresh grease,” Kirby said. “I’m very proud of the work they are doing.”
During Monday's meeting, Lake City Manager Don Rosenthal added that city crews had completed their cut and toss efforts and he had already brought one of the county's cleanup contractors on board to help with debris removal inside the city as well.
Landfill open and free to use
County residents, not contractors, may haul their organic storm debris to the county landfill and drop it off free of charge seven days per week for the next few weeks until the storm cleanup is deemed complete, Kirby said. This is a free service for Columbia County residents.
Personal debris cleanup
Individuals who clean up their own property without using a contractor may stack their organic storm debris at the edge of their property in the right of way and cleanup contractors will come by in a few weeks and pick up the debris free of charge. Kirby said if contractors leave debris, such as large logs from tree cutting, at the side of the road, the property owner will be charged the cost of hauling away the debris.
Garbage pickup delayed a day
If your normal scheduled garbage pickup day was scheduled for Monday, your pickup day will be Tuesday this week. Tuesday’s schedule will be pushed back to Wednesday, Wednesday’s to Thursday, etc. This week works the same as a holiday schedule, Kirby said.