Columbia County on countdown to get debris cleared
COLUMBIA COUNTY, Ga. (WJBF) – Columbia County is on the countdown to get all of its debris cleared away.
Friday was the 15th day of work, and the site on Gibbs Rd. is one of three locations in the county where trucks are dropping off massive piles of debris – and more help is coming.
Ceres Environmental has gathered about 225,000 cubic yards of debris so far, and more than half of that is on the Gibbs Rd. site. The company plans to add more sites and bring in more workers.
"The federal government is willing to pay one-hundred percent of the recovery cost for the first ninety days, so everybody's really wanting to get as much done in those ninety days," said Bo Ansley, the Regional Client Service Manager for Ceres Environmental. "And we seem to be on a pretty good track. The one's we're gonna be cutting it really close are going to be the two heaviest impacted areas which are Augusta Richmond County and Columbia County."
Crews pick up debris based on zones in the county, bring it back to the sites, pile it up, and grind most of it into mulch for different uses.
"We're gonna make multiple passes and we'll be very transparent with the public about when these final passes set up," Ansley said. "We can't pick up anything in a bag, so we encourage the storm debris not to be in a bag, just put it out there and we'll get it."
Marilyn Donnan lives in the Walnut Hill neighborhood beside the site; her debris was getting picked up Friday.
"We all put our stuff out to the curb, somehow word got around and we assumed that someone would pick it up," Donnan said. "And after a while we're thinking, how long will this take? Someone said three months, and so for it to be happening now is just wonderful. Yeah, we're glad."
Donnan said she'll miss walking the trails on the new debris site, but she understands why it's needed.
"We've used the field and the woods there for recreation, but I guess they have to put the stuff where they can," she said. "We've always known it was kind of on loan."
Ceres Environmental has 75 days left to complete the job so FEMA will fully reimburse the county. Leaders said they're hoping to be done before Christmas.
