Pinellas County, Florida, is on a peninsula on Florida’s west coast, across Tampa Bay from the city of Tampa. Hurricane Helene hit Pinellas County pretty hard, and many residents and state workers were left with a lot of storm debris to clean up. There was just one problem: the Pinellas County landfill announced it wouldn’t be open to accepting storm debris.
As people in Pinellas County line the streets with piles of debris, where will it all go?
“It put everything to a screeching halt,” Farmhand Hauling & Property Maintenance Owner TJ Rutherford said.
“It will take weeks, if not months to clear the debris,” Barbra Hernandez, the Director of Communications for Pinellas County said Friday morning.
Pinellas County’s main dump is now not accepting storm debris.
Governor Ron DeSantis said, “Oh, yeah?” And now, the Pinellas County landfill is back open to storm debris.
The executive order said 24/7… State assets had a lot of debris to drop off, and it was locked. There was no one manning it. So they opened it. And that’s totally appropriate. We need 24/7. … We’re supplementing [local debris removal efforts] in ways that have never been done.”
There are a few details about how or when the Pinellas County landfill was opened; in the press conference on the progress of the recovery, Governor DeSantis responded to a question about the landfill being “cut open”:
GOVERNOR DESANTIS: Yes, that’s accurate, the executive order said 24/7, I know Kevin was in contact with the county folks, there was a bunch of state assets with a bunch of debris to drop off, and it (the landfill) was locked, and there was no one there manning it, so, they basically opened it. So, they opened it, and they did the debris, and that’s totally appropriate, to be able to do that. We need 24/7, right? I mean this is something I think the local folks have worked hard on the debris, I think that it’s a lot of debris, right? And so they’ve worked hard on it, and we’ve got to redouble the efforts there, And we’re supplementing those efforts in ways that have never been done in the history of the state of Florida, so those debris missions have to be around the clock, you are going to save, I mean, you could potentially save lives, because this debris can fly and hit people, but certainly you are going to get less damage if you can get that debris off. So yes, there was nobody manning that site, so basically our folks in the state just opened it.
This, folks, is what leadership looks like. The landfill would appear to be essential for the removal of debris that is clogging sidewalks and even roads; the recovery from this storm has to start with clearing that debris, the debris has to go somewhere, and the county landfill is the logical place for it.
The Pinellas County Public Works Director, Kelly Levi, gave two reasons for closing the landfill to storm debris:
“Our landfill has a limited lifespan,” she (Levi) said. “So if we were to accept all of this debris, we might not have any space left after this storm.”
And the second: regulations surrounding federal dollars.
Levy said to get FEMA reimbursements, the county has to document where all of this debris is coming from, ensuring that it actually came from an unincorporated area of Pinellas County.
That second requirement, it seems likely, could be waived by the Biden administration by the stroke of an executive pen, but I think we all know how likely that is. In the first place, Florida is a deep-red state, and seems an unlikely candidate for such consideration by the partisan Biden White House; in the second place, it’s not at all clear that Joe Biden even knows a hurricane has taken place.
See Related:Joe Biden’s Response to Hurricane Helene Question Causes Outrage and Concerns About His Mental Health
At least one report states another possible motivation for the closure of the landfill:
The Biden administration’s response to this event has been distinctly lackluster.
See Related: Kamala Harris Gets Massively Blasted for Tone-Deaf Remarks in Face of Hurricane Helene
North Carolina Deputy Warns People Who Want to Help Western North Carolina: ‘Do Not Donate to FEMA’
In Florida, however, Governor DeSantis is not only on the ball, but it sure looks like he’s not willing to tolerate any Bravo Sierra in getting his state cleaned up. That’s leadership; that’s crisis management. Florida had some bad luck in being in the path of Hurricane Helene, but they sure as shooting have some better luck in that they have Ron DeSantis in the governor’s chair.
