Written by by Kylie McGivern at abcactionnews.com
PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Pinellas County leaders say they are working to find other solutions to help commercial haulers after closing the county’s dump site to storm debris on Tuesday.
That day, the county provided one location for commercial haulers to bring storm debris. Wednesday, two more were added.
On Thursday, Chris Nemethy, of Big Dumpz Trailer Rentals, told the ABC Action News I-Team the barriers need to be removed before the Tampa Bay area gets inundated with more rain.
“All of the debris that’s laying out, it’s going to flood, it’s going to end up spread out everywhere, it’s going to end up in our waterways,” Nemethy said.
Nemethy started posting videos to his social media, to update people on what commercial haulers are encountering in Pinellas County — being met with hurdles, as they work to help families recover. In his videos, he encourages others to contact county leaders.
“I have questions about, when we bring in government contracts and, you know, there’s funding issues and stuff like that — why. You know, we’re already cleaned up, working in that direction, why would we put it back,” Nemethy said. “That’s why we need these answers, it’s why I told people to reach out to local government officials, to see if we could get those answers to push things forward.”
As the days pass, Nemethy said mold is growing on debris piled high on street curbs and there are other health concerns.
“There are dozens and dozens and dozens of rats hopping pile to pile, scouring the streets,” he said.
Nemethy told the I-Team when he showed up at the county’s dump site early Tuesday morning, he was told to take the debris back to people’s homes and that FEMA would be handling it.
When asked what went through his mind, Nemethy said, “Absolutely not. It was just… why would we do that? We literally at that point, I would say, with confidence, hundreds of trucks lined up at the landfill, full of debris, already cleaned up.”
Pinellas County said it is following strict requirements by FEMA and can only accept debris from unincorporated parts of the county.
“If you hire someone with a truck and a trailer and you want to ride with them to the location and show your ID and say this is my debris, and this individual is hauling it for me, that’s perfectly fine. We will absolutely accept that. The challenge has been that commercial haulers have been showing up at these locations with multiple households full of stuff and we can’t document where it came from,” Pinellas County Public Works Director Kelli Hammer Levy said on Thursday.