Orlando, Fla. (AP) — Monday marks three months since Hurricane Irma blew into Central Florida on Sept. 11 with gusty winds that toppled trees and shook loose several million cubic yards of branches and limbs.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that taxpayer-funded cleanup, hampered initially by a shortage of emergency debris-removal crews, is nearly done.
Frank Yokiel, project manager for Orange County Public Works, says contractors are making a third — and final — pass in unincorporated neighborhoods.
Orlando hopes to be reimbursed for most of its pick up and disposal expenses by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which announced in September it would repay 90 percent of eligible expenses. But most county governments in Central Florida, all of which have spent millions, worry it could take years for FEMA to repay them.