HOUSTON — Humongous debris piles may be filling up around your neighborhood and according to the City of Houston, there's a reason for that.
Nonstop debris-filled trucks have been making their way to the processing site near the corner of Elysian Street and Hamblen Street. The mounds of tree limbs will eventually become mounds of mulch.
Neighbors told KHOU 11 News the site just popped up and has kept on growing following the Derecho storm on May 16.
Many have asked what exactly is happening with all the debris and KHOU 11 News has been working to find out.
On Wednesday, we reached out to the City and were told there was a huge volume of debris from last month's storm. Legally, they can’t just collect it and dump it at the landfill.
First, It needs to be compressed. So, the options are often to burn the debris to shrink it or reduce it by turning it into mulch.
The City has brought in an outside disaster response service, Ash Britt, to handle that process. On Wednesday, we saw piles of trees and limbs right next to mounds of mulch.
The City said it will be recycling the debris by partnering with multiple agencies that use mulch and work to get a lot of this distributed.
Neighbors said debris is still being picked up on area streets. The City said that the process could take two to three months to finish.
After the storm, the city launched a debris pick-up tracking tool. It worked for a day or so before it went offline. That was roughly two weeks ago. KHOU 11 News is waiting on an update to find out when it will be back online.