BRADENTON BEACH – Police Chief and Public Works Director John Cosby gave an update on sand removal, debris pickup and road repairs at an emergency city commission meeting on Nov. 13.
The weekly emergency meeting was called to continue the declaration of a tropical event for Hurricane Helene.
“We’re working on mitigating the sand at the end of 25th, 26th and 27th Streets,” Cosby said.
With some homeowners having repairs being done to their properties, construction debris has been piling up after the city completed its hurricane-related debris removal.
Effective Nov. 19, all debris and yard waste become the responsibility of homeowners and businesses. Waste Pro will only collect properly bagged debris and yard waste.
Code enforcement actions will begin on Dec. 20 for leftover debris.
He praised debris removal company Ashbritt and debris-monitoring company Debris Tech.
“I can’t say enough about them,” Cosby said. “We got a lot of equipment for a city our size and we’re very happy with that. Everything is going very smoothly.”
He said concrete chunks remain in piles of sand that were pushed aside. Those will be difficult for Ashbritt to process and will need to be removed in a different way.
Cosby said there are some roads damaged during and after the storms that will need repairs.
“We’re going to be meeting with Woodruff next week and we’re going to utilize them for road repairs,” he said. “We’re going to have to put some road base back down. They’ll also be doing the stormwater (drainage) cleanout. We have a good working relationship with Woodruff so they’re going to step up to the plate and help us out.”
Cosby said he will be meeting with FEMA next week, following the state announcement that the agency will be issuing low-cost loans for governments.
“Hopefully we can secure some money at a better rate to get us through until FEMA starts pushing money down,” he said.
