FEATHER SOUND, Fla. (WFTS) — Pinellas County is resuming residential debris pickup for households in these Unincorporated Pinellas County communities:
- Feather Sound
- Crystal Beach
- Unincorporated Tarpon Springs
- Baywood Village
- Unincorporated Gulfport
- Harbor Bluffs
- Harbor Hills
- Eastern Lealman
There will be separate pickups for household debris, construction/demolition, and household appliance debris.
A second pass will follow at a later date.
Storm debris must be loose and separated by type:
- Vegetative material
- Construction and demolition debris (doors, drywall, mattresses and furniture)
- Household appliances. Refrigerators must be empty. Residents can place small amounts of vegetative debris such as branches, twigs and leaves in their usual receptacle or bags and put it out for pick up by your regular trash collection provider.
Small amounts of vegetative debris, such as branches, twigs, and leaves, can be put in normal receptacles or bags and left out for regular regulation trash pick up.
Storm debris in bags and/or not separated will NOT be picked up.
If you live in a municipality, contact your city or town to find out if storm debris pickup is available in your area.
The county says they are starting with those areas because of the sheer volume of debris.
Zack Walters lives in Feather Sound. The sight before his eyes right now is unexpected.
"This is normally a pretty nice, clean neighborhood," he said.
His yard is currently full of the contents of his home, from his furniture to his walls.
"It's kind of just wait, it's a wait game for that. So got to do what you got to do. It's salt water. So you got to get it out of the house and just kind of pray this insurance company comes through what you pay for," he said.
Walters says he's waited a long time to see crews come out to pick up the debris from Hurricane Helene. When Hurricane Milton hit, he was worried about how it would impact the streets lined with trash.
"It was a lot less than I expected," he said. "As we were driving around, this debris didn't really move. It was kind of the trees that took the brunt up there, 30 feet up. But, I mean, I was surprised none of this moved at all, actually, and we didn't have the flooding. So if we had flooding, it would have been all it would have been a nightmare."
But the debris has to go. Walters is excited to hear pick-up will soon come to his neighborhood.
"It would save me $2,000 to having someone come and pick it up. So, yeah, if they can get out here pretty quick, that would be, that'd be awesome," he said.
The County estimates there are approximately 1 million cubic yards of residential debris just in the unincorporated areas (not including the cities). Pinellas County has also reopened residential storm debris drop-off sites for unincorporated residents at 13600 Icot Boulevard in Clearwater and the corner of Keystone Road and East Lake.
Pinellas County says it could take months to finish debris removal.
That timeline doesn't come as a shock to Bennett Walters.
"I went through Ian. I live in Port Charlotte personally, so it took almost three months for Irma and Ian for the debris to get picked up. It's simply just a matter of magnitude of how many, how many houses really need attention," he said.
Bennett Walters works for MD Smith Construction.
He knows firsthand how hard it is to get through every single damaged house and then gut that house on a quick timeline.
"You don't recover from a storm like this in two weeks. It takes months. So the best we can do is what we're doing. I mean, we worked, we're working all weekends, 12 hours a day, Saturday and Sunday. Not to take a step back, but the people doing that work still have families to take care of," he said.
Pinellas County Public Works has transitioned all internal trucks and crews to focus primarily on residential storm debris removal from county roads.
Private commercial haulers can take debris to designated sites around the county. More information is available at Pinellas.gov/debris.
That link will also tell you which zones are currently being collected.
You can use the My Neighborhood Services tool to determine if your property is located within unincorporated Pinellas or a city/municipality.
A state report says hundreds of frail elderly nursing home residents were stacked side by side, head to toe in a small church with no working air conditioning or refrigerator during Hurricane Helene.
