Exactly a month after Terrebonne Parish suffered historic levels of loss due to Hurricane Ida, it was reported by HoumaToday that more than 7,000 tons of household garbage has been picked up across the parish– nearly double the standard amount during that time frame.

This enormous increase in garbage pickup equates to an extraordinary amount of added workload and man-hours put in by sanitation employees who were also citizens of the parish and thus impacted by Hurricane Ida alongside the citizens whose garbage they picked up. The employees that work for Terrebonne Parish’s sanitation contractor, Pelican Waste, faced various challenges in housing, transportation, and other storm-related issues since the Category 4 storm’s August 29 landfall.

The solid waste director of Terrebonne Parish, Clay Naquin, told Parish Council members at the September 29 council meeting that his department “tried everything they could” to get Pelican Waste employees back into the parish following the storm so that cleanup could begin. The “everything” Naquin referred to included providing power generators, temporary housing, and three square meals a day whenever possible to his workers.

Once they were back in the parish, collection crews from multiple contractors went out across the parish to pick up as much commercial, mixed, and debris garbage that they could, despite delays faced along the way. Naquin urged the public’s adherence to FEMA guidelines that indicate how debris should be stored and stacked at the curbside. Similarly, collection crews follow FEMA protocols when it comes to debris collection, and their garbage trucks are usually followed by teams ensuring that such protocols are being followed.

Because of the increase in debris pickup this past month, adhering to FEMA guidelines at both the waste management and resident level is of utmost importance, according to Naquin. He told council members, “if we don’t follow the protocol that FEMA puts out there, we have a chance of losing funding. can tell you right now, we’re probably pushing $6 million-plus in our debris collection, and if we don’t follow this, we have a chance of losing everything.”

Outside of the routine garage pickup, many Terrebonne Parish residents have been bringing their garbage and debris to the parish’s designated drop-off sites. Having citizens haul their own debris and garbage to these sites significantly lessens the workload placed on individual garbage collecting crews. As of the September 29 Terrebonne Parish Council meeting, Naquin reported that 121 tons of vegetation, 2,822 tons of mixed debris, and 5,378 tons of commercial mixed debris have been dropped off at these designated locations.

Naquin also emphasized that a parish-hired contractor, DRC, had picked up 674,167 cubic yards of storm debris across a total of 12,140 loads. He then provided a figure that was given by Governor John Bel Edwards in a recent news conference in which he stated that the state picked up 1 million cubic yards of debris on all state roads affected by the hurricane. Naquin compared this to DRC’s average of 35,000 cubic yards of debris picked up daily, saying “I’m giving those numbers just to show you that this crew, DRC is out there, really working.”

In addition to accruing significant amounts of debris in the wake of Hurricane Ida, Terrebonne Parish saw about 85% of its signage become lost or damaged during the storm. Out of these 17,500 signs, about 5% have been restored and reset, and parish public works director David Rome assured the council that the department is prioritizing signs at the top of the restoration list, due to civil and transportation importance. The restoration list of signs to be reset sees stop signs, followed by street name signs, then yield, and speed limit signs in that sequential order.

Little by little, the various departments and agencies across Terrebonne Parish are putting in the man-hours and effort necessary to help the area “bounce back” from a detrimental storm season, thus offering a small glimmer of hope in these turbulent times.

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