The trees toppled by Hurricane Helene continue to bedevil dozens of Georgia counties. And, long after the storm, they’ve left communities with a massive task: doing something with them.
Two months after Hurricane Helene slammed into Georgia, the cleanup is far from over. From sunrise to sunset, crews continue to fill hulking trucks with tangles of trees and woody debris piled along roadsides in more than half of the state’s counties.
Much of it is being hauled by government contractors to local landfills to bury or burn. But some community officials haven’t decided yet what to do with all the debris they collect. Meanwhile, a lot of what’s on nonresidential private property may be left to rot. And the window for commercially salvaging the wood is quickly closing.
The storm’s winds — not flooding — wreaked the most havoc on Georgia. As of mid-November, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimated that about 34 million cubic yards of debris from Helene had been picked up near homes and along roads in the state. That’s enough to fill about 1,600 NFL football fields 10 feet high — end zones included. But it’s only about 60% of what ultimately needs to be moved with government assistance, according to a FEMA spokesperson.
Then there are all the trees that fell on timber lands, farms and other business properties. The Georgia Forestry Commission estimated $1.28 billion in timber losses from the hurricane.
In areas of Georgia where trees and the forestry business usually generate a lot of money for owners, trees ended up costing communities dearly, crushing cars and roofs and taking lives.
Local governments have urged residents to get piles of the woody debris to roadside rights of way, where subcontracted crews have been gathering load after load, often with giant claws attached to their trucks. The federal government has said it plans to reimburse local coffers for most of the expense of the cleanup. Much of the material is brought to sprawling fields, where other workers turn mountains of debris into woodchips or mulch.
Ultimately, much of the debris is being taken to local landfills, where its fate varies.
Often, officials say, the chopped up material likely will be spread in layers to cover newly dumped trash, aiding in the decomposition process. Other communities have been burning the woody waste, whether chipped or not. Some use special equipment to improve efficiency of the burns and reduce how much smoke is released.
The Georgia Forestry Commission has issued permits for landowners to burn small piles of storm debris but said it wouldn’t issue permits on days when there’s reason to believe the smoke might be a problem.
Some residents wonder about government finding other uses for the debris, at least once it is chipped. In Columbia County, the chairman of the county commission was asked on Facebook whether local mills could use some of the material. He replied that he had “reached out to several companies. They have no interest.”
In Lowndes County, which includes Valdosta, a local company agreed to accept a fraction of the chipped storm debris, which it intends to use, in part, in its production of a soil amendment. A plant manager said he wished he had enough storage space to take more.
For local governments, collecting and disposing of the avalanche of debris isn’t cheap. Costs for some could easily creep into the millions of dollars before they are reimbursed with federal funds. FEMA has agreed to expedite its processing of repayment requests.
In Echols County, a rural community with fewer than 4,000 residents, the price tag could amount to more than half of the government’s annual budget, said county manager Alan Levesque. The community, though, has been fiscally responsible, he said, and can cover the cost until it gets reimbursed by the federal government.
Ten Georgia counties are getting help from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to coordinate debris removal and defray the initial local cost. Georgia officials also have asked FEMA to extend the amount of time that it gives counties to pick up the debris and file for maximum reimbursement — from 90 to 180 days.
That’s important, because local officials say it could take months more to finish the removal work.
Adding to the challenge: North Carolina and Florida also are looking for debris haulers. Those states were battered by the same hurricane. A few weeks back, officials in Bulloch County noted that some haulers left the area after communities in Florida increased contract rates, according to a local news report.
Georgia property owners, meanwhile, are facing their own issues as they scramble to salvage value from trees downed on their land.
The rates they are being offered for pulpwood — which is used to make paper, tissue and other products — dropped by about 90% after the hurricane pushed vast amounts of wood onto the market. And many loggers are too busy to quickly get to all the fallen trees, often focusing primarily on the largest timber owners rather than people with smaller properties.
“The market has been flooded,” said Jonathan Smith, executive director of TimberMart-South, an Athens-based not-for-profit timber price reporting service.
And time is slipping away for trees left on the ground too long. Six to eight weeks after falling, wood can develop fungi that can slice into the value of wood destined to be cut into boards, Smith said. And trees that will be used to make paper can begin to decompose, which means the market for them could close by the first of the year, he said.
What doesn’t get picked up could be left by commercial timber owners to rot in place or burned in prescribed fires.
New application deadlines are fast approaching for those seeking federal or state of Georgia assistance tied to damage and disruption from Hurricane Helene. Some deadlines vary depending on when each county received a disaster designation.
Dec. 2 is the deadline for individual Georgians to apply with the state of Georgia for Disaster Unemployment Assistance in the following 41 affected counties: Appling, Atkinson, Bacon, Ben Hill, Berrien, Brooks, Bulloch, Burke, Candler, Chatham, Clinch, Coffee, Columbia, Colquitt, Cook, Echols, Emanuel, Evans, Glascock, Irwin, Jeff Davis, Jefferson, Jenkins, Johnson, Lanier, Laurens, Liberty, Lincoln, Lowndes, McDuffie, Montgomery, Pierce, Richmond, Screven, Tattnall, Telfair, Toombs, Treutlen, Ware, Washington and Wheeler.
Dec. 3 is the deadline for Georgians in four other counties — Effingham, Elbert, Rabun and Tift — hit by Helene to apply with the state for Disaster Unemployment Assistance tied to Helene.
Dec. 6 is the deadline for Georgians in 18 additional Helene-affected counties to apply with the state for Disaster Unemployment Assistance. That includes the counties of Brantley, Bryan, Butts, Camden, Charlton, Dodge, Fulton, Glynn, Hancock, Long, McIntosh, Newton, Stephens, Taliaferro, Thomas, Warren, Wayne and Wilkes.
Jan. 7 is the extended deadline for individuals and some self-employed businesses to register with FEMA for federal disaster assistance tied to Hurricane Helene or Tropical Storm Debby. Additional information about individual assistance is at www.fema.gov/assistance/individual.
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