City of Pensacola
The city’s contractor is working 25 zones at once, starting with the heaviest tree canopy and the worst safety hazards. Expect multiple passes.
The City of Pensacola says the first pass of hurricane debris collection will take 4-5 weeks after the storm, meaning every residential street should see at least a portion of its debris collected by late November. A second pass of equal length will follow immediately.
Priority is given to areas with the most damage, the densest tree canopy, and large, heavy hazards.
How the Work Is Organized
Areas with the most tree canopy and damage come first. The city’s contractor has divided Pensacola into 25 zones based on Sanitation Services’ collection routes and has crews in each zone daily. Crews use the city’s tree canopy maps to identify areas likely to have the most storm damage. You can see this visualized in the debris collection tracker.
Safety hazards take priority. Supervisors check priority areas daily for debris that could endanger drivers and pedestrians, such as large tree trunks or piles extending into the roadway. Those areas come before non-hazard items and piles.
Expect partial street collections. After safety hazards are handled, trucks fill their remaining weight capacity with smaller debris such as leaves, twigs and branches. That means crews may collect debris from one property but not the next, or leave part of a pile behind, as they work through the heavy-canopy zones.
What’s Next
- Crews will keep working through the prioritized zones until every street has been serviced.
- A second pass begins immediately after and will also take 4-5 weeks.
- There will be multiple debris passes until all streets are clear, so residents can set out additional piles.
Reminder: Separate vegetative debris (tree limbs and leaves) from construction and demolition debris (building materials, fencing, carpet, furniture and plumbing materials).
Questions about your debris or a downed tree in your neighborhood? Call the City of Pensacola Storm Debris Hotline at 1-833-495-3573.
In the meantime, drive carefully around hurricane debris and be patient while crews work through the city.
We still have debris blocking the western sidewalk at Eastgate Park in District 1. Parents pushing baby strollers should not have to get off the sidewalk to bypass the debris. Some other weird stuff is going on in Eastgate Park with the routine refilling of the dog bag dispenser and emptying of garbage cans. No one has refilled the dog bag dispenser since prior to the storm so there is more than usual dog “debris” left near and sometimes even on the sidewalk. Also, pre-storm the eight-acre park had eight trash cans, arguably a few too many. (In 2008 we had two, I asked for more and we ended up with eight.) All garbage cans blew away during the storm because city staff removed the locks that used to hold them to a tree. Citizens found five cans and put them at the south edge of the park where they don’t do much good. Someone put one can back by the basketball court where it is full. At some point, the can will soon be too full and basketball players will have to dump their alcoholic beverage containers in the open vice in the can. For as long as I can remember, PPD doesn’t actively enforce city laws in city parks (and a PPD officer once told me so) which is why people drink, smoke, vape, park and even drive through Eastgate Park. We had two shootings in the park in 2024 and one in 2026 with the public not told anything. I had to find some 9mm shell casings and tell PPD to come pick them up. The very odd thing is that two days ago a city Parks & Recreation vehicle was driving around in the park. According to a neighbor who observed it all, the person driving the small garbage truck was mostly talking on his cell phone but did at least drive to the location of the garbage cans to include the one by the basketball court. The truly sad thing is that the city employee was observed to look into the garbage cans but not actually empty them. Perhaps its time for the city to contract with a private vendor to empty garbage cans in city parks because city employees don’t seem very interested in doing the job. This is a long-standing problem. The real problem is a lack of leadership in Parks & Recreation Dept.
Rick, you forgot the part about how a contractor gets a jump start of a week with no permit to illegal truck stuff over a road they are too heavy for. How many dump sites is the City operating in the property in a similar fashion to the one off Old Barrancas?