Supervisors Set April 30 Debris Deadline
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WATER VALLEY — The Yalobusha County Board of Supervisors has set Thursday, April 30, as the deadline for residents to place storm debris along county road rights-of-way as cleanup efforts enter their final phase following Winter Storm Fern.
The date was set during the board’s “first Monday” meeting after supervisors reviewed ongoing cleanup progress across the county.
The deadline comes as officials with TFR, the company contracted for debris removal, reported that the first round of pickup on all county roads is expected to be completed by the end of the month. Crews will then begin a second and final pass, prompting the cutoff date for residents.
“The second pass should go fast,” TFR Project Manager Mike Mejia explained Monday.
Overall cleanup is currently projected to take about 45 more days.
Cleanup activity was briefly paused over the Easter weekend as both TFR and Debris Tech, the county’s monitoring firm, reached previously approved spending limits set by supervisors.
During Monday’s meeting, supervisors voted to increase those limits, approving up to $7 million for TFR to remove an estimated 300,000 cubic yards of storm debris.
Debris Tech continues to track the scope of the work, which includes more than 8,000 leaning trees and nearly 20,000 hanging limbs identified and cut during the cleanup process.
The cleanup effort follows weeks of steady progress that had already pushed costs near earlier caps. As of March 30, county officials reported approximately 182,000 cubic yards of vegetative debris had been collected.
Board President Cayce Washington previously noted that the project has required ongoing coordination with state and federal agencies to ensure eligibility for reimbursement through FEMA and MEMA.
Under current guidelines, FEMA is expected to cover 75 percent of eligible costs, with MEMA covering 12.5 percent and the county responsible for the remaining 12.5 percent.
County officials are working to offset much of that share through in-kind contributions such as labor, equipment use and volunteer efforts. Those contributions, tracked by a third-party firm, ER Assist, are nearing the half-million dollar mark and will count toward the county’s 12.5 percent cost share.
The in-kind work includes volunteer labor and meals provided in the immediate aftermath of Winter Storm Fern, along with portions of the county’s own expenses for labor and equipment used in the cleanup. Additional eligible work includes fire departments monitoring the burn site where debris is hauled and county sweepers clearing smaller debris from roadways during hauling operations.
A quick projection shows that if the project comes in near the $8.5 million estimate, the county’s 12.5 percent share minus the in-kind contributions would leave just over a half-million dollars to be covered from county funds. Supervisors indicated during Monday’s meeting that the cost will likely be split among the five districts, with just over $100,000 coming from each beat’s road and/or bridge fund.
