St. Pete residents bring debris frustrations to city hurricane resource and recovery meeting

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla (WFLA) — The city of St. Petersburg held a "Hurricane Resource and Recovery" meeting to update and inform the public on their efforts.

Florida Emergency Management Assistance representatives, code enforcement, and other city entities were made available to the dozens of people in attendance. More than 150 people joined the meeting virtually.

Some residents took this opportunity to voice their concerns regarding debris pickup, or the lack of it.

Teresa Miller is the landlord of a property on 93rd Avenue North. She said she and her neighbors have been waiting on pick-up for long enough.

"They seem to be picking up the debris and trash everywhere else. I don't know why this pocket gets left out," said Miller.

She got a violation notice from the city, dated Oct. 30th, addressing the debris and other problems at the apartment.

"Instead of getting a notice for city violation I should get a notice about when they are going to pick it up," said Miller.

Her neighbors want the same thing. A few doors down, massive piles sit next to cars parked on the street.

The Womack family said they see code enforcement representatives on their street every day, but no debris pickup trucks. They point out their dying grass underneath the debris.

"It's going to be terrible. You can see can see right here where it's browning. We own this so this is a yard we're going to have to replace that," said April Womack.

A sanitation official dealing in storm debris cleanup told David Womack the city got permitting last week to store debris at the Toytown landfill, which is about 15 minutes north of their home, so they should start seeing progress in that area.

Richard Lawrence waited patiently for the Q&A portion of the meeting to address city leaders directly, where he accused the city of being reactive instead of proactive.

"I think the progress on the debris clean up has been appalling. In the Northeast there are piles and piles of debris for blocks and blocks," said Lawrence. "When I evacuated I saw hundreds and hundreds of utility trucks coming down to Florida, god bless them, to help us out. Then we get back here and the debris, two months later, is piled up into the streets eight feet tall. It's unimaginable... You need to step up and make this happen yesterday. You need to get that debris off the streets yesterday."

Mayor Ken Welch responded directly to this comment, first by acknowledging the problem on the Northeast is the run time is 90 minutes. Welch said it's not that they don't have enough trucks, but it's the transport time.

The hope is with Toytown opening, there will be more relief in that area. Welch said they have moved more debris in this amount of time than they ever have before, and are using the resources available to them.

"I just disagree that we are reactive. We have been very innovative, proactive, and we've moved more debris than any other local government," said Welch.

Lawrence asked the Mayor what would happen differently next time, based on an earlier presentation regarding rising sea levels, and he mentioned development in the tropics.

"You have to get used to the fact that your debris is not going to be gone from your house in two weeks," said Welch.

Lawrence said it's not about how much has already been removed, but the fact that this is a coastal community that should have plans for these kinds of storms.

The city told 8 On Your Side they would send a statement on the violation notice. Code enforcement was present at the meeting.

Once we get that information we will update this story.