Contractors bail on pre-Irma pacts
Some local cities, counties searching for crews to clean up storm’s mess
Several Central Florida governments are scrambling to find crews to pick up hurricane debris after some contractors opted out of pre-storm pacts for better-paying contracts in South Florida.
“I thought we had it taken care of,” said Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer, one of many area leaders now searching for replacement crews to haul away tree limbs, palm fronds and other vegetation knocked down or uprooted Sept. 11 by Hurricane Irma’s thrashing winds.
Most communities in Florida, particularly those boasting lush oak canopies, considered the prospect of removing Irma’s mess to be daunting even before the new complication. Some expected the chore
would take two months or more — with special crews and claw trucks.
Now some can’t count on that specially-equipped help to rid curbs and street gutters of piles of limbs, leaves and fronds, estimated to be large enough in unincorporated Orange County alone to fill Spaceship Earth at Disney’s Epcot 15 times.
In a conference call Wednesday afternoon with county and municipal leaders, Gov. Rick Scott and Attorney General Pam Bondi listened to complaints about debris removal contractors not fulfilling their duties as spelled out in pre-hurricane agreements with local governments.
“These contractors should honor their promises to Floridians and do their jobs when they are needed most,” Bondi said. “Exploiting this crisis at taxpayer expense is outrageous and will not be tolerated.”
Orlando signed emergency debris contracts long before Irma hit, “but unfortunately the contractors we use are having a challenge getting resources from their subcontractors to provide the number of trucks we need on the roads,” city spokeswoman Heather Fagan said Thursday.
Part of the blame lies with Hurricane Harvey, which hammered Houston last month.
“Harvey sucked up a lot of the resources,” Kilsheimer said.
Storm cleanup was already a priority in Central Florida, where most communities had storm debris plans in place, said Windermere Mayor Gary Bruhn, president of Florida League of Cities.
“You don’t know what lies ahead,” he said, noting that the Atlantic hurricane season doesn’t end until Nov. 30.
Hurricane Maria, for instance, barreled through Puerto Rico as a Category 3 storm Wednesday, killing 18. According to the National Hurricane Center, Maria’s probable path is well east of Florida, but hurricanes sometimes take crazy, unexpected turns.
Maitland City Manager Sharon Anselmo fired off an email Tuesday to AshBritt Inc., the South Florida debris removal company that was supposed to pick up Irma debris from city streets.
“You have left this City and our residents in a terrible and desperate place,” Anselmo wrote to company officials. “We are filled with rotting debris and health hazards, and except for our own crews — we are at a standstill for 7 days after the storm has passed.”
The company didn’t respond to a request for comment.
About a dozen cities reached out to the Florida League of Cities for advice and direction about contractors who bailed, said Jeff Branch, a legislative advocate for the organization, the voice of Florida’s municipal governments. Demand for debris removal services doubled prices, which were set in pre-hurricane agreements.
Earlier this week, Bryan Koon, director of the state Division of Emergency Management, issued guidelines to counties who want to expedite debris removal while protecting taxpayer dollars. To qualify for Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement, he said, debris removal costs must be “reasonable.”
He pointed out a local government can pursue “an emergency, non-competitive procurement” of debris removal services if a vendor under contract refuses to work at the rate set in the pact. But Koon cautioned against renegotiating with the same vendor for a higher rate.
The vendor may not qualify as “responsible” under state law, and the higher rate may not be “reasonable” under federal rules. Those qualifications are typically required for a city to be reimbursed by FEMA, which will pay up to 75 percent of a city’s hurricane-related expenses.
Apopka, Orange County’s second-largest city, sought new bids but tried tackling the storm debris itself using city-owned claw trucks.
“I’ve never seen anything like this. Never. Not even in ’04, when we went through three storms,” said Apopka sanitation worker Quantary Roberson, 36, after he dumped a claw-truck load of tree trunks and other storm debris at the Northwest Recreation Complex.
A co-worker, Sam Anderson, 63, said some beleaguered residents cheered him and feted him with cold water to drink when his sanitation truck’s mechanical claw hoisted large piles of storm debris off the curb.
“I’ve been on this job 12 years and never felt like such a hero,” he said.
Ashley Moore, a spokeswoman for Seminole County, said debris won’t be gone quickly even with properly qualified and equipped crews. Seminole has 1 million cubic yards of debris to pick up.
“It’s a long process,” she said. “It’s not something that will get resolved in a week.”