PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – After several hurricanes, St. Johns County residents are concerned that storm debris hasn’t been picked up, including residents in the Plantation Oaks neighborhood.
A huge pile of storm debris is now sitting at the front of the neighborhood. The enormous pile of debris all came from Hurricane Helene. Neighbors collected it ahead of Hurricane Milton because trash pickup hadn’t collected it in time for that storm.
Scott Wolter lives in Plantation Oaks. He’s frustrated that neighbors felt they had to move the storm debris ahead of Milton.
“They piled it up in front of the house like we were supposed to. No trucks came, and as weeks went on, it was almost two weeks between the two hurricanes, and no one came and picked up anything,” So some of the residents took it upon themselves to go and pick up all the debris in the neighborhood, and bring it up front here, so we wouldn’t incur any more damages to our homes.”
Jason Engelhardt is also a Plantation Oaks resident. He’s hoping the county will take care of the problem soon but neighbors have been getting conflicting information whenever they call the county asking them to pick it up.
“We’ve had difficulty with our garbage collection in the past, and I hope this isn’t part of what this is,” Engelhardt said. “And I truly hope that in the next few days, they come and take care of this, and I’m going to chalk it up, hopefully, to the fact that there were other people that had bigger issues than we did.”
But St. Johns County Public Works Director Greg Caldwell gave an update during Tuesday morning’s commission meeting, saying that several contractors like AshBrit and Tetra Tech have been hired by the county to help with cleanup efforts.
“We’re no longer in yard debris mode, we’re in storm debris mode so that’s why we’re able to bring in AshBrit and these other major debris removal contracts that will help St. Johns County,” Caldwell said.
News4JAX called the Solid Waste Department and emailed the St. Johns County Office of Public Affairs to learn more about the issue.
Meghan Whitlock, Public Affairs Specialist with the county, sent an email that said:
“Since St. Johns County received a disaster declaration from the president, we are eligible for FEMA reimbursement. Because of this, we have hired our vendors AshBrit and Tetra Tech to come in and haul storm debris. They should be mobilized and in the county by the end of this week. There was no vote on this by the board today since the county has existing contracts with these vendors. That debris will be hauled at Plantation Oaks free of charge.”
Meghan Whitlock, Public Affairs Specialist
News4JAX spoke with Fred Spencer, another Plantation Oaks resident, not long after we got that response from the county.
“Well, we hope they’re going to live up to their word And again, we wouldn’t even be having an issue if there was a consistent message from the county that said, Oh yeah, we’re coming to pick this up. You know, we’re going to get to you,” Spencer said. “But there was a, you know, one caller got a, oh, you put it in a pile, we can’t pick that up. And so it was, there’s been some confusion about it, and maybe they could clear that up… They’ll do the right thing.”
While some neighbors are optimistic about the debris cleanup, Wolter is skeptical.
“Well, being on the list is great, but when you actually show up and take care of this mess, is when it’s really going to show if it actually works or not. If the county’s actually paying attention,” Wolter said. “So that’s the hard part, just waiting for them to actually get some action rather than talk.”
St. Johns County is asking residents to be patient as they work to get all storm debris cleaned up. You can find more information about storm debris on the county’s website.