PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Dead trees, broken limbs and mountains of other debris have become an eyesore across Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
The debris is being removed slowly but surely.
"We're knocking it down one at a time, really fast," debris hauler Claire Williams said.
Local 10 News reporter Terrell Forney was in Pembroke Pines Wednesday as everything that was hauled away from a neighborhood was taken to an area near the Broward landfill to be dumped.
A row of trucks could be seen performing the same endless task.
"Seven days a week, 12 hours a day, but we do our job," Williams said. "(There is) so much (debris). It's like there's no end to it."
The removal process is still problematic in many communities, like in Coral Springs, where piles of trash from the storm have yet to be picked up on some blocks.
"There's just not enough trucks," Coral Springs Mayor Skip Campbell said. "There's not enough haulers, not enough individuals picking it up, so that’s the major problem."
Hurricane Irma left nearly 50 counties across Florida impacted, unlike Wilma in 2005, when only a few counties suffered widespread damage.
Officials said resources have been stripped thin and many of the remaining haulers are still price-gouging.
"The competitive bidding process, people abandoning their hauling contracts to get more money in Dade County -- we're dealing with that, but slowly but surely, it'll be cleaned up," Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said.
"They could face lawsuits, but the question is: Is that going to remove the trash? And that's the problem all cities have," Campbell said.
Meanwhile, North Miami City Councilman Scott Galvin said he is determined to get the debris removed, so much so that the city has brought on more contractors.
"There were only two trucks that were available to us through our FEMA contract company, and when we saw that there were only two on the street last Sunday, we're like, OK, this is not going to cut it," Galvin said.
Galvin admits that the task will take months to complete because FEMA resources are stretched thin.
"They were challenged because there are trucks that are needed in other parts of the state and trucks that are needed in Texas," he said.
Much of Miami-Dade County is dealing with the same issues.
"We have between 3 to 5 million cubic yards of debris that has to be picked up," Gayle Love, of Miami-Dade County Waste Management, said. "After Hurricane Wilma, it took us 60 days, and we estimate that it's going to take us at least 60, and possibly it could be up to 90 days (now)."
Officials are asking residents for patience and to keep their debris piles separate from their garbage to ensure pick-up.
"Really, what this clean-up or what this debris removal is for is for the materials that are the direct result of Hurricane Irma," Love said. "So it's really not the time to start cleaning out your garage or house and decide, 'I'm going to add it to the pile.'"
