As the community of Levelland continues to push through the long-term effects of the May 29 storm, the recovery process continues for emergency management.
Levelland and Hockley County Emergency Management Coordinator Cole Kirkland is continuing to work and manage the “behind-the-scenes” of the recovery process.
“The debris management piece has been an absolute nightmare,” said Kirkland. “They say donations and debris management are the disasters within the disaster and that is accurate.”
Recently, an action review meeting was held at the Levelland Fire Station where all aspects of response were examined.
“The meeting was about an hour long and we had two white boards in the training room that were full of things discussed,” said Kirkland. “We call it the good, the bad and the ugly.”
The boards consisted of things that went well, things that they did not get right and what could be done in the future to mitigate however they went wrong or a better way of doing it.
Controlling debris fields was one of the discussed topics in regard to finding a better way to handle those. Kirkland explained that a bulk of the debris fields consisted of non-storm related items “We are pretty lucky to have a good relationship between the city and the county because the commissioners have helped the city haul off debris several times,” explained Kirkland. “They also helped haul almost 100 loads of green waste from the storm to a burn site.”
Kirkland explained the original plan was to utilize a tub grinder for the green waste, however, all the tub grinders were being used in east Texas as a result of all the grass fires that area had experienced simultaneously.
“The City of Levelland Public Works team and the county commissioners road crews have knocked it out of the park by getting all of the green debris moved out,” said Kirkland.
In order to handle all of the construction debris, the city went under contract with Republic Services to have the company haul the construction waste to other facilities. With two of the sites having been on private property, the goal has been to get those areas cleaned as quickly as possible.
“Those property owners were willing to allow us to use those areas and the last thing we want to do is burn those bridges,” explained Kirkland. “We want to leave those areas in at least a good of a shape as they were beforehand.”
Kirkland added that the price for cleaning up is not cheap. In addition to hauling off the debris, tires have been difficult to get rid of as there were roughly four loads the city had to dispose of.
The city is hopeful to recoup some the dollars put towards the clean up through FEMA assistance.
“It is expensive going through disasters,” said Kirkland. “It is taxing on the jurisdiction as it is all tax dollars that are used to recover, and it ultimately falls back on the people to help themselves recover.”
Currently, Kirkland is going through a weekly meeting with FEMA as he handles the municipal and county process.
“Our paperwork is very extensive and we will probably be in the middle of this recovery for the next 18 months,” said Kirkland. “It is very long winded, but if we can get some of that money back that belonged to our community then that will ultimately less the tax burden for our taxpayers.”
With the federal government allocating funding for these types of situations, Kirkland feels that it is his responsibility to get it back to aid in limiting the taxpayers burden with the recovery efforts.
“They people here already have a hard time as it is,” explained Kirkland. “If there are resources on the table to keep us from having to impact our community even further then that is absolutely what we are going to do.”
While the efforts of Kirkland are not a guarantee, he shared that working with FEMA has been a relatively smooth process and is working to ensure all details are taken care of.