Officials working with contractors for debris cleanup

A prime contractor in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort, Ceres Environmental Services Inc., is under contract with Cameron County to provide it and its cities with disaster recovery cleanup.

Katrina was the first Category 5 hurricane in 2005, striking the Gulf of Mexico coastline Aug. 29, 2005, causing widespread devastation.

And Ceres is now in line to provide the county and cities with disaster recovery in the event of a hurricane, Cameron County Emergency Management Coordinator Johnny Cavazos said.

Tony Peña, emergency management coordinator for Hidalgo County, said that the county is in the process of securing the contracts for debris cleanup and that service would be available in time for hurricane season.

Cavazos said the firm cannot go into private property, but would be in charge of removing and disposing of biohazards and hazardous materials, animal carcasses, and regular brush, tree and wood debris from curbsides, streets, and roadsides, Cavazos said. He said property owners could remove debris from their properties and place it on the curbside for pickup.

"They will pick it up," Cavazos said of the prime contractor.

Cavazos estimated that every home has roughly five pounds of some type of hazardous materials such as gasoline, oil, insecticides or chlorine. "If you multiply the pounds per household, you have thousands and thousands of pounds of waste," he said.

Furthermore, a contracted monitor, Beck Engineering, would be ensuring that the debrisrecovery process is carried out as contracted for.

In addition, Cavazos said that 11 engineering firms are in place. They would be deployed to survey the damage and advise the Emergency Operations Center of the most-critically-affected areas.

"Each city will have their own damage-assessment teams in their respective cities reporting to the cities' EOCs and where the debris contractors need to go," Cavazos said.

The prime firm also would be in charge of handling ‘white' goods such as stoves, freezers and refrigerators and recycling freon. "The contractor will have special teams to ‘hot wash' items and recycle freon before they go into a landfill," Cavazos said.

Regular household trash would be picked up by the trash contractors that the county and cities have.

Peña also recommended that in the aftermath of a storm that residents focus on keeping their families safe by staying away from fallen utility lines, not allowing children to play in or with debris, and not wading in water.

Cavazos said that in the event of a hurricane, a call center will be established and a toll-free number will be available to answer questions from residents.