Cleaning up
Triangle Business Journal - by Mark Hilpert
RALEIGH
When Hurricane Fran roared through the Triangle last September, the damage inflicted heavy losses on many area residents and businesses -- but the disaster boosted the fortunes of construction firms lucky enough to win cleanup contracts from City of Raleigh agencies.
Fran resulted in the destruction of roads, sewers and parks. But despite the melee, officials with three city departments conducted the distribution of contracts to private firms through its standard bidding system.
And while most city residents who didn't have their roof caved in by a falling tree might think that the fallout from Fran's fury is over, the work of those contractors goes on.
Help from feds and businesses
The most obvious evidence of the storm's impact came on the day after the storm, when many Triangle workers began the normal trip to work only to find most roads unnavigable.
The brunt of responsibility for moving fallen oak trees that blocked the way fell to Jimmie Beckom, the City of Raleigh's transportation chief. Beckom said it was obvious from the beginning that city officials alone weren't equipped to do the work quickly.
But they'd have to try to get as much done as possible until federal agencies mobilized and contracts with private firms could be arranged.
"The city isn't staffed up to handle that much debris in a short time frame," he said.
At the outset of cleanup operations, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had come in to assist in the removal of downed trees from the roadsides. The engineers issued the first Federal Emergency Management Administration contract to Phillips and Jordan, a general contractor in Robbinsville in Graham County near the Tennessee border.
That firm specializes in grading and site clearance and is experienced in emergency restoration work associated with disasters such as Fran. In all, 500 people and 270 pieces of equipment went to work to clear up to 250,000 cubic yards of debris between Sept. 30 and Oct. 14 alone.
When the Corps of Engineers came in, that gave city officials time to clean up the major thoroughfares and get the contracts going for private companies.
After the Corps' contract with Phillips and Jordan expired on Dec. 17, the city contracted with private waste handler Waste Management of Raleigh-Durham, which loaded and hauled 1,500 truckloads of material at a cost to the city of $356,475. The contracting process began to kick into gear as construction firms from outside the area began to trickle in.
About 80,000 truckloads of 1.6 million cubic yards of debris were collected and removed to city and private disposal facilities.
Contracting process never changed
Despite the crisis situation, Beckom said contractor bidding on the job went through the city's standard contract approval process.
Beckom said the Corps of Engineers contract gave the city enough lead time to get a private contractor in place to do cleanup. Waste Industries, chosen simply because the firm made the lowest bid, stayed on the project until Feb. 14.
Beckom said that some citizens frustrated with the slow progress of clean up had suggested that lumber yard companies come in to collect the wood debris in exchange for free lumber. But that idea was scrapped because of a lack of demand for the debris on the part of such companies.
"The reason why saw mills didn't pursue that idea is that although they wanted the wood, they were operating at nearly full capacity anyway, and they had no means of getting the wood, storing it and processing it before it rotted," Beckom said.
"The private sector just simply didn't have the manufacturing capacity needed to use debris resources such as wood chips from shredded lumber for fuel, so much of the wood was simply burned," Beckom added, noting that the city did recycle some materials.
Big job at the parks
A major part of the Fran cleanup is fixing the extensive damage done to the Raleigh parks system. Although repairing such damage may not be as urgent as clearing streets, the city's effort is just as serious, said John Hoppe, landscape architect with the city's parks and recreation department.
The department's clean-up effort began with "Phase One," an attack on storm damage that began using private companies almost immediately. Using contractors and city forces to clean up seven of the most highly used parks in the city -- from Shelley Lake/Sertoma Park to Lake Wheeler and Carolina Pines -- the city got to work restoring the places that many rely on for respite from the rigors of work and home.
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