Manatee County crews rush to gather debris ahead of back-to-back powerful hurricanes

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As Hurricane Milton barrels toward Florida, Bradenton residents find themselves in a race to secure their homes and clear the remnants of Hurricane Helene.

Hastily boarded windows went up Tuesday as Manatee County braces for another catastrophic impact from Milton, which looms in the Gulf of Mexico as the most significant hurricane threat to the region in decades.

To add to the stress, Bradenton neighborhoods remain cluttered with piles of debris left from the last storm.

Across the county, windows are being hastily boarded up and crews are scrambling to collect the debris before Milton can turn those scraps into dangerous projectiles with its peak winds of up to 115 miles per hour.

Coastal Manatee County residents brace for more destruction

Water-logged belongings discarded from flooded homes line the streets of Sunny Shores Mobile Home Park in Cortez, a community where many residents lost everything due to Helene’s historic storm surge . Now, with Milton forecast to bring powerful winds and even more significant storm surge to the Tampa Bay area, all eyes turn toward the uncollected debris and those still trying to pick up the pieces from the last storm as the next storm approaches.

“I’m still just numb to it all,” said Katie Thompson, whose home was significantly damaged during Helene.

Thompson, like many of those at the Bradenton mobile home park off Cortez Road, lost just about everything in the last storm.

It was around 7 p.m. on Sept. 26 when she said storm surge began rushing into her house. Within 10 minutes, Thompson said the water was already up to their ankles in her driveway. That’s when she realized she needed to evacuate.

Thompson said she returned to a horrifying sight: floodwaters engulfed the entire mobile home park.

“Water was everywhere. My neighbor’s refrigerator floated away,” Thompson said.

The day after the storm, cars could barely navigate the community as 2 to 3 feet of standing water inundated the entrance. And left behind in the wake of Helene’s prolific storm surge is an assortment of personal belongings left curbside after irreparable damage from floodwaters.

Helene’s mess adds to fears for Milton

Refrigerators, furniture, mattresses and more sit in heaps roadside at Sunny Shore and other Florida neighborhoods, raising a new fear for Thompson and others: that this debris could turn into projectiles launched by Hurricane Milton’s powerful winds.

Wesley Wunz, who has lived in the park for 37 years, said he shares that fear. Wunz is worried that after the storm he’s going to come home and not be able to “get down my road because of the debris on the side of the road that they haven’t cleaned up.”

Wunz, 62, also lost everything. He predicts that his home will have to be fully rebuilt after Helene’s storm surge submerged his Harley Davidson motorcycle in the garage before entering the house.

As Milton nears, Wunz will evacuate to the Florida Keys with his dog, a 7-year-old Shih Tzu named Chewie. Wunz said after his experience with previous storms, including Helene’s flooding and Hurricane Ian ripping the roof off his home in 2022, he isn’t sticking around for Milton and the whirlwind of debris.

“This is like the third, fourth storm that I’ve got flooded out. So I mean, after this one, that one, that one, and that one, things are starting to get a little old and tired,” Wunz said.

Will debris be removed in time for Hurricane Milton?

Thompson said there have been debris pickups at the mobile home park since Helene, but she’s afraid it’s not going to be enough before Milton arrives and throws the remaining piles everywhere, potentially causing even more damage.

Waste Pro workers were busy collecting debris at the park Tuesday morning and could be seen throughout Manatee County.

State and local governments are racing to clean up as much debris as possible before the winds from Hurricane Milton arrive. Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the issue at a Sunday morning press conference, acknowledging that the debris left behind by Helene could become a major problem during Milton.

“What’s going to happen with that debris? It’s going to increase the damage dramatically,” Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a Sunday morning press conference. “This is all hands on deck to get that debris where it needs to be.”

DeSantis urged local governments to pick up the pace and assigned several state agencies to focus their resources on helping clean up, mandating that all landfills and debris management sites stay open 24/7.

“Do not take your foot off the gas on this debris mission. You have unprecedented support to help you,” DeSantis said. “With the resources that we’re marshaling, that is going to make a difference.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, Bill Logan, a spokesperson for the Manatee County Government, told the Bradenton Herald that haulers have removed nearly 4,700 tons of debris, not including “Waste Pro and Waste Management crews who have stepped up to help out today.”

Logan did not provide an estimate of how much debris remains uncollected.

Race to clear debris on Anna Maria Island

While storm debris can be found throughout Manatee County, the piles in Bradenton neighborhoods pale in comparison to the mountains of assorted junk stacked on North Bay Drive on Anna Maria Island .

After Manatee County shut off water service to the barrier islands and ordered mandatory evacuations, most of the island’s roads were empty Tuesday afternoon. But dump trucks navigated the quiet, sandy, rubbish-filled streets to haul away heaps of debris at North Bay Drive near The City Pier and the much-destroyed Rod and Reel Pier, which remains temporarily closed after Helene shredded the boardwalk.

Workers brought debris from across the island to be hauled away from one spot. But one worker said while they are doing their best to remove as much as possible, he’s afraid they’re running out of time and it won’t be enough.

“Hopefully the storm slows down or stays away, but there’s just no way you can get it all out of here in time,” he said.