The debris blitz begins Thursday morning

As many as a dozen storm-debris teams will be in neighborhoods across the city beginning Thursday at daybreak, and residents are reminded to please move their storm debris to the curb now.

Mayor Andrew “FoFo” Gilich has announced the plan which will involve storm-debris teams having eight designated starting points, one in each of the city’s seven wards and two in the expansive Ward 7.

The Zeta crews, which are using high-capacity, self-loading equipment, will work seven days a week, from sunrise to sunset.

Initial estimates are that the city has about 200,000 cubic yards of debris, a pile that would fill the Coast Coliseum twice.

“They’re saying it could take 60 to 90 days at the most to get the debris moved,” Gilich said, “but our goal is to get it done before that.”

Katrina, meanwhile, produced about three million cubic yards of debris in Biloxi and took eight months to remove.

Said Gilich: “I believe we can get a lot done working sunrise to sunset, seven days a week, but for it to be successful we need residents to move storm debris to the curb. City contractors cannot go on private property.”

To avoid damage, do not place debris near power poles, guy wires, fire hydrants, mailboxes or gas meters.

Do not bag the debris. Typically, the city asks that lawn clippings be bagged, but in the case of storm debris, please do not bag storm debris. The storm debris contractor needs it to be visible and unbagged. If you’ve already bagged it, leave it there and it will be picked up by Pelican. But as you move more to the curb, no bags, please.

Don’t mix debris with household garbage, electronics, or household hazardous waste as the contractor will not be able to pick it up.

Continue using your brown trash cart for household garbage. Pickup days remain the same for residential garbage, trash and recycling.
See the storm debris-removal map

Zeta news & notes and more

Harbors and marinas: Biloxi’s Small Craft Harbor, Point Cadet Marina and the commercial docks south of the Hard Rock remain closed. Crews are working to restore services there.

Parks: Miramar Park off U.S. 90 remains closed. Please be cautious when visiting city parks while crews clean debris, downed trees and limbs, especially at Clare Hornsby Lions Club Park, Hiller Park and Pennzoil Park.

Beaches: The Harrison County Sand Beach Authority has temporarily closed the beach while crews continue cleaning up debris from Hurricane Zeta.

Burn ban: A burn ban continues in Biloxi. Biloxi Fire Chief Joe Boney says the burn ban will run through at least the end of the week as it is too unsafe right now to burn with all of the debris that we have on streets and in neighborhoods.

Council: The Biloxi City Council has rescheduled tonight’s meeting until Wednesday at 6 p.m. at Biloxi City Hall because of elections. The meeting will be streamed live on the city’s website and may be accessed Wednesday evening by clicking the LIVE button at biloxi.ms.us. To see the agenda and supporting documents, click here. To see the live stream page, click here.

Water is OK: Biloxi’s municipal water system maintained adequate pressure during Zeta, which means no boil water notice is necessary. To see background on the good news, which was announced in the wake of the storm, click here.

Weekly reports: To see the weekly reports from key city departments, click here.

And, finally, a sneak peek: A special Zeta-recovery edition of the city’s newsletter will be arriving in homes and businesses across the city on Thursday. You can get a sneak peek online now by clicking here.