Extra crews will be utilized to aid in response.
Kevin Kirby said it didn’t take long after first light Friday morning to realize the damage Columbia County residents and property owners had suffered from Category 4 Hurricane Helene’s romp through the area was cataclysmic compared to other recent storms.
“I’ve been doing this awhile and I know my county and so do my crew leaders and it took about a half hour this morning to realize we had a massive cleanup ahead of us,” said Kirby, who is the Columbia County Assistant County Manager who oversees public works as one of his duties.
Top to bottom, Columbia County experienced widespread tree and limb damaged equally everywhere. The damage was severe and everywhere.
The calls and reports of trees down and roads blocked continued to come in and by the time the county commission met at 1 p.m. Friday, he had 350 incident reports in hand and the reports were still being logged by staff members. There were reports of 63 power lines down on county roads by early afternoon Friday, but Kirby said those continued to be reported, too, so he expected this number to be 100 or more by Saturday morning.
Kirby said the process for clearing the downed trees and debris is a systematic one.
“We have to establish a pecking order, just like there’s always a pecking order in life for anything,” he said. “We clear the main arterial roads, then areas around the hospitals, schools, etc. People may not like this because their road does not clear as fast as they want it, but we will get to everyone eventually.”
Kirby said he would be utilizing the county’s eight “cut and toss” crews to clear roads, plus an all-hands-available policy during storms meaning that everyone in all of his departments shifts their duties to working on the cleanup crew until the debris is removed. The eight crews of county workers represents 140 personnel who will tackle the county divided into nine cleanup zones.
“We will utilize all of the county’s standing contracts for cut and toss and for cleanup work and be able to bring in 12 additional crews to help us,” Kirby said. “This basically means we will have 48 more workers out there helping us with the cleanup starting on Monday.”
The cleanup’s first order of business will be the cut-and-toss element of the cleanup, which is exactly as it sounds. Crews cut back the fallen trees or debris and toss it in piles that line the right of way along the roadside. After everything is cut and tossed, possibly even weeks later, a cleanup crew comes along behind and picks up the debris to take to the landfill.
Kirby said the crews would be relentless with their clearing and cleanup efforts.
“I promise the people of this county we will go from can to can’t,” Kirby said. “We will get after it seven days a week. I ask the residents to have patience with us.”
Kirby said the crews will work from first light until dark and additional safety barricades and barrels had been ordered for motorist safety to be used to mark road hazards at night.
“Some areas are really hit hard we cannot get it all cleaned up at one time,” he said. “We will put barrels out there and we will work a small skeleton crew at night, but people need to stay home at night. That is the best thing they can do to help us. If they don’t, someone is going to fly around a corner and there’s going to be part of a tree sticking out in the road and nothing but an orange barrel in front of it and they’re going to smack right into it. We simply can’t get them all cleared in one day.”
Kirby said he was very thankful for the many residents who had used their personal tractors and equipment and had already been clearing their own property, telling county crews not to worry about it, they were glad to help. “I’ve seen this county come together again and we really appreciate it,” Kirby said. “We just caution everyone, please don’t touch the limbs and the trees with any power lines in them.”
County crews also wait for power crews to check any downed lines in trees before they cut away the debris. They will bypass any trees that have power lines in them until power crews have given the OK then come back to them.
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 it away.
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, beginning Saturday morning for the next few weeks until the storm cleanup is deemed complete, Kirby said. This is a free service for county residents.
Sandbag totals
Kirby said the final sandbag totals claimed by county residents prior to the storm was 15,090, but it turned out the Category 4 Hurricane Helene was a wind storm and not a rainmaker. Still, county residents were prepared with free sandbags provided by the county, as they always are before a hurricane or tropical storm approaches.