City of Charleston reports more than 46,000 cubic yards of storm debris removed in first three weeks of recovery

In an update today, the city of Charleston reported that 46,645 cubic yards of FEMA-measurable debris were collected in the city over the first three weeks of recovery after Hurricane Matthew, putting the city’s current progress on a par with the recovery efforts after Hurricane Floyd in 1999, when 46,000 cubic yards were collected in the same time frame.

“Though there’s still much to do, we’re proud that our hard-working city employees and staff have so far been able to match the standard of excellence set by the city of Charleston in previous hurricane recoveries,” Mayor John Tecklenburg said. “And our task moving forward is clear — it’s to keep moving faster, to keep bringing more resources to bear, until this job is done and our streets and neighborhoods are even cleaner and clearer than they were before the storm.”

To that end, the city also announced today that it is working with the FEMA-certified contractor to add more local debris-removal subcontractors that the city has been able to identify over the past several days.

“With almost fifty percent more debris than we saw after Hurricane Floyd in 1999, this a big job, and we need to have all hands on deck,” Tecklenburg said. “We are grateful for the tremendous efforts of everyone who’s worked so hard up to this point, and we appreciate the willingness of our local small businesses to add their resources to the effort. Even more, we’re grateful to our citizens, who’ve done so much over the past few weeks to assist with the cleanup, and whose patience and understanding throughout this process has been so remarkable.”