The city of Roanoke Rapids has still not received word from the state regarding reimbursement for cleanup costs in the wake of a powerful May storm that toppled trees and power lines.
Public Works Director Larry Chalker asked the city council Tuesday night for a budget amendment of $71,828 to complete the cleanup process. He said $250,000 was originally requested for cleanup in the aftermath of the storm. The council unanimously approved the budget amendment request.
“We’ve pretty much processed the storm debris, but now we’ve got to finish up paying the vendor,” he said. “What’s owed is more than the original $250,000. Plus, there is a little bit of hauling left.”
Chalker said the state is still processing the city’s request for reimbursement. “There was a tremendous delay in the beginning.”
The city manager requested emergency management assistance on June 12 and then requested an update on July 14. She received an immediate response that the documentation “was circulating around state government,” Chalker said.
On September 25, Chalker emailed Halifax County Emergency Management for help in getting an update from the state on the status of the city’s reimbursement request.
State emergency management informed Chalker that the city’s declaration package had been submitted to the governor’s office. “Somewhere along the way, somebody apparently got confused because we kept asking questions, and just this past December, I got a reply that said we’re going to have to circulate it again.”
Chalker said he believes that at the time, the state was still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene in the western part of the state. “I think that could have contributed to some of the delays. Once we found out that we didn’t have any funds coming in, we just started paying the vendor off the $250,000 that you had allowed us.”
The budget amendment request of $71,828 represents the balance of what the city owes the vendor, he said.
City Attorney Geoffrey Davis explained that debris of this nature cannot sit indefinitely. “We have to get rid of it because our collection site is only certified for a certain amount.”
The city has its normal limb yard, Chalker said, where a knuckle boom truck picks up debris such as limbs and trimmings daily and takes it to the city’s permitted yard. “For those normal collections, we have certain amounts that we’re allowed to have on hand at any given time.”
When a storm creates the level of damage seen in May, the city uses a portion of the yard permitted for emergency debris response. “There is no limit for emergency debris, but you still have to do something with it because there’s so much of it,” Chalker said.
The city collected 12,090 cubic yards of debris from what Chalker described as an approximately seven-minute windstorm.
Chalker had estimated an initial $250,000 budget for the cleanup effort, “never thinking that we would even spend that, but we just kept picking it up and we worked on this storm for well over a month. We had to call a vendor because we just couldn’t handle it by ourselves.”
City Manager Kelly Traynham said the longer debris sits, the more it must be monitored. It also has to be turned and the temperature regulated to prevent spontaneous combustion.
With Chalker’s report coming immediately after the city’s clean audit report and news of a healthy fund balance, Traynham said, “This is why a healthy fund balance is really necessary for us to keep around, because we’re looking at almost $322,000 just from that one storm event. You can imagine if we have a few of those at one time; it’s why it’s important to keep our reserves because you never know if you're going to get reimbursed or not, and the timing of those reimbursements is not as quick as it used to be.”
