A dining table and chairs sit in a pile of storm debris in Bowling Green. Efforts from Bowling Green Public Works to complete debris cleanup from the May 2024 storms has been impeded both by improper items in debris piles and vehicle breakdowns.
Crews with Bowling Green Public Works are still at work cleaning up the city over a month after severe storms swept through Bowling Green and an EF1 tornado tracked through portions of Butler and northern Warren counties, bringing down trees and spreading debris.
“The biggest delay right now, and has been from day one, is we have to haul all the debris up to the Glen Lily Landfill,” said BGPW Director Andy Souza. “Even from your closest city street, up to Glen Lily and back is about a 45-minute round trip.”
Delays have also been caused by breakdowns with trucks. He said Public Works planned at the start of cleanup earlier this month to have three boom trucks in operation, but mechanical issues did not let that happen until last week.
Debris pickup in Bowling Green has been broken up into 10 zones. The city entered zone five on Thursday and is expected to finish that zone by the middle of next week. Zone five runs from the intersection of Broadway Avenue and Smallhouse Road out to Phil Moore Park.
Public Works has a goal of finishing all debris cleanup by the first week of August, something Souza said is “probably realistic.”
“It’s just a guess based on timing,” Souza said. “We have a holiday in there, (so) we’re not going to pick up through the weekend or Fourth of July.”
Souza said Public Works “triaged the city” after the storm, determining where the most debris was, clearing roadways and starting cleanup on the hardest hit areas first.
“We sort of had an idea of what we were looking at,” Souza said. He said the amount of debris “was not shocking, but it was a little bit more than we anticipated.”
As more time goes by after the storm, Souza said, Public works is finding more and more trash and waste stacked on debris piles.
He said this has included brush trimmings along with car parts, pieces of fencing and, on Thursday morning, a dining room table and chairs.
“Don’t get me wrong, we have really good citizens and most people are doing it correctly,” Souza said. “But it seems like every single street somebody’s trying to pull a fast one.”
Souza said this is a problem because not only does it fill up trucks more quickly, but Public Works is planning to seek cost reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“It’s sort of unethical for us to claim a certain amount of tonnage or a certain number of loads if it has nothing to do with the storm,” he said.
Several crews working with Public Works have been moved to debris pickup in an effort to get debris cleared as fast as possible. Souza said this has meant several other city projects have been halted.
“We’re pausing some of the sidewalk work, some of the pothole filling,” he said. “Any emergency stuff we’re absolutely going to fix, but it’s taken a pretty heavy load on my people.”
According to a post from the City of Bowling Green on Facebook, anyone who lives in zones one through four who did not have their debris cleared will need to contact a private hauler.
