ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – The countdown has begun for St. Johns County residents waiting for the debris left behind by Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton to be picked up, and their patience may be wearing thin.
Bob McNally, who has lived in the Bayside neighborhood for 25 years and in St. Johns County for almost 50 years, said he has never seen this much debris in the neighborhood, adding that he has also never seen it stay around for this long.
Related: Cleanup continues in St. Johns County after Milton; many grateful damage wasn’t worse
“I understand there‘s lots of trouble with hurricanes and debris, but [the debris] has been here three weeks,” he said. “This is untenable, unacceptable, and it‘s the county’s job to get it out of here.”
Since Hurricane Helene moved through Florida in late September, residents in McNally’s neighborhood have been stacking debris, creating somewhat of a communal pile.
While riding a golf cart through his neighborhood, he told News4JAX that it wasn’t long after Hurricane Helene that he began noticing all the waste left from the storms was not being picked up.
“[It was] probably a week or 10 days,” he said. “I wrote a letter to the county commissioner and called them [about] a week before Milton hit...so it was two weeks after Helene saying, ‘You know what’s going on here?‘”
News4JAX spoke with St. Johns County officials, who said debris wasn’t picked up because the county was initially excluded from the president’s initial disaster declaration, which meant the county would have to cover the cost of debris pick-up and pass it on to taxpayers.
However, now that the order has been updated to include St. Johns County, the county will be reimbursed for its clean-up efforts, which could begin soon now that two companies have been hired for debris removal, according to county officials.
Upon their arrival, officials say the process could take weeks to complete.
McNally said that in the past, even in the face of more damaging hurricanes, the county has been “good” about removing debris from the streets, but this time, he said county officials “dropped the ball.”
Meanwhile, the FCC will continue its regular trash pickup schedule in St. Johns County, which began on Aug. 1.