There’s just no nice way to say this: We’re still looking pretty rough these days.

Western North Carolina, I mean. And yes, thanks to Helene.

Sure, a blanket of snow over the weekend helped with the aesthetics a bit, but we’ve still got a pretty bad tropical storm hangover. Debris remains everywhere, ranging from piles of tree branches to cars in rivers.

A recurring theme in my correspondence with readers is their frustration with the slow rate of storm debris cleanup. Everywhere. Here’s one sample, from my email:

“Is Swannanoa now the new dumping yard and general eyesore for Buncombe County? Three months since Helene, yet Swannanoa looks and feels eerily like the disaster area it has been since Sept 27, 2024. Other areas are being picked up, put back together. Meanwhile,  Swannaona resembles essentially what it did a week after Helene hit.”

I’ve heard the same complaints about Biltmore Village, the French Broad River north of town, the Swannanoa River pretty much everywhere, the River Arts District, north Asheville, and several parts of Buncombe County. 

The readers are right — parts of our community still look pretty rough. Heck, in my neighborhood a few houses still have furniture, mattresses, and paint cans sitting at the curb, waiting for some mysterious entity to pick them up. 

More than three months after Helene, debris cleanup remains agonizingly slow. I hate to say this, but it’s not going to get a whole lot faster. Cleanup is going to take months, probably even years in places.

I will say this: Asheville and Buncombe officials have been very upfront about this from the get-go. Buncombe County Manager Avril Pinder and Asheville City Manager Debra Campbell have made frequent appearances at the regular Helene briefings, giving updates on storm cleanup, and they always mention how much debris has been cleared and how many trucks and crews are on the road.

A mind-bending amount of debris remains

And they always mention that millions of cubic yards of debris remain.

At the last briefing Jan. 9, Pinder noted that “694,384 cubic yards of debris have been removed from the public right of way.

“That’s in Buncombe County, Black Mountain, and the City of Asheville,” Pinder said. “Today, there are 34 trucks running in Buncombe County for right-of-way collection. There are 26 tree crews operating in the county. And debris crews are currently active at Lake Julian Park.”

The city and county have maintained since the storm that Buncombe has about 10 million cubic yards of debris that needs to be cleared. That includes about 3 million cubic yards in the city proper.

If you do a little extrapolation — say, calculate that they’re picking up 650,000 cubic yards every three months, or about 217,000 a month — that comes out to about 2.6 million cubic yards a year. 

That would mean four years of looking at debris piles. I don’t think removal is going to take that long, but it’s not going to be fast, either.

I asked Pinder on Thursday if that extrapolation holds true. 

“I think it’s going to take several, several more months to pick up all the debris,” Pinder said. “And what we did say today, as well, is that we are at about 95 percent of that first pass. We talked about several passes to pick up all the debris.”

People are now bringing out second piles of debris, as they continue to clean out their homes and yards. 

“As we’re going back through now and surveying our streets, we’re seeing new debris on the site as well,” Pinder said. “So we know it’s going to take multiple passes. We ask people not to bring too much to overcrowd it right away, and we’re seeing that that second wave is starting now.”

Swannanoa and Barnardsville have had about 95 percent of the first wave picked up, Pinder said, and the other parts of the county stand at 99 percent. But that second wave is considerable, too.

Crews have not started removing ruined “titled property” — cars, boats, trucks. The goal is to get that started by mid-February, Pinder said.

As a reminder, Pinder again explained how this system works. 

“We actually have the United States Corps of Engineers doing a collection for us on debris, and that’s the contract through FEMA,” Pinder said. “And then they then subcontract to our local vendors.”

Keep in mind that these contractors also are working in several other mountain counties where debris remains.

Can more resources be brought to bear?

I asked if the county could request more trucks and more crews. Pinder said it has “really ramped up the staffing and subcontractors” doing this work.

“They have been bringing more trucks,” Pinder said. “And I would ask that question too — if there are more trucks that they can bring, but they have brought as many trucks as possible, I think, in our community,” Pinder said. “But we can ask that question again to see if there’s any more that they can bring to our community.”

In its Jan. 8, newsletter, FEMA noted: “More than 2.6 million cubic yards of debris has been removed from public rights of way by FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and contractors.” That’s a big number but that’s not just Buncombe, of course.

The FEMA North Carolina news desk told me Friday that the Army Corps is currently picking up debris in 10 cities, towns, or counties. FEMA and the state are conducting debris removal in the remaining counties affected by Helene, FEMA said.

I asked about adding more crews, and a timeline.

“More contractors, crews, and trucks can at times only increase congestion and illuminate pinch points along the routes and into/out of staging and reduction sites,” the FEMA news desk said. “To keep from overtaxing infrastructure, debris contractors work with local officials on collection routes and priority areas.”

Regarding a timeline, FEMA said, “There is no exact date for when debris removal will end. Usually after large disasters, it is common for removal to continue for several weeks or months after an event.”

I’ve also asked the city about debris pickup slowness, and city spokesperson Kim Miller responded.

“We understand our community’s frustration with storm debris removal,” Miller said. “The initial assessment shows up to 3 million cubic yards of storm debris in the city — equivalent to roughly 140 football fields stacked 10 feet high.”

She noted that efficient debris removal “requires careful sorting and processing, which takes time.

“Please continue to leave storm-related debris curbside,” Miller said. “Teams are out collecting debris daily. We are unable, at this point in recovery, to specify streets or times of pickups.”

The county and city also offered tips for keeping debris removal efficient. Here are a few to keep in mind:

• Debris may be blocked by parked cars or overhanging power lines. Some piles, such as those under power lines or behind parked cars, require smaller equipment like skid-steers.
• Piles placed outside the right-of-way (beyond 10 feet from the road) cannot be collected.
• Trucks are limited by the type of debris they can collect during each pass. For example, if a truck is collecting vegetation, it cannot pick up construction or mixed debris.
• Crews are making multiple passes and will continue working until all debris in the public right-of-way is cleared. The first pass focuses on readily accessible debris. Ensure your debris is sorted, unobstructed, and within the right-of-way.

The county is still asking people not to take vegetative debris to the landfill, as it’s trying to keep that out of there and grind it up separately.

When I asked FEMA about complaints from readers about spotty debris pickup, the news desk also stressed putting the debris in the right of way. 

“Some debris removal was ineligible due to the fact that private insurance made or were in the process of making arrangements to remove that debris,” FEMA said, noting you should contact local officials if you feel you were skipped over.

Before Christmas, I wrote an Answer Man column answering a question about waterway cleanup. That also falls to the Army Corps of Engineers, under direction from FEMA, and Army Corps spokesperson David Connolly also invoked the long-haul nature of this enterprise.

We’re looking at months and months of cleanup time, at least.

The complexities of waterway debris cleanup

“If you think right-of-way debris removal is complicated, waterway gets that much more complicated,” Connolly said then. He also noted that the Corps has similar cleanups to do in 10 to 15 mountain counties.

So those cars and trucks in the Swannanoa River that are visible from Thompson Street? They’re not going anywhere soon.

Connolly said steps for waterway cleanups include receiving applications for the work, verifying the need through reconnaissance and then assembling a detailed plan that includes definitions of where the waterway in question begins and ends. The Corps also has to determine where the proper points of entry will be.

When asked for a timeline, Connolly answered with brutal honesty.

“I honestly can’t. I won’t even pretend to speculate on that right now,” Connolly said. “I wouldn’t want to give people some false hope of a timeline, because I really just don’t have one.”

I can tell you from talking to property owners that removal and rebuilding damaged buildings  gets really complicated. They have to wrangle with insurance companies and banks, figure out if their buildings are salvageable and arrange for reputable contractors to do the work.

In some cases, they’re unsure if they can rebuild in a floodplain or meet newer codes that call for sites to be raised.

All of this is just more complicated than it appears it should be. 

That’s frustrating and depressing for all of us, especially in winter when all of the vegetation and leaves are gone. We’re exposed in many ways right now, and it’s not pretty to see.

One of the charms of this area is the natural beauty, the streams and rivers and beautiful vistas that we’ve all taken for granted for so long. It’s tough to see it besmirched.

For now, we all have to be patient, follow the recommendations, and do what we can to help others out. 

Meanwhile, it’s not going to be pleasant to look at.

Asheville Watchdog is a nonprofit news team producing stories that matter to Asheville and Buncombe County. Got a question? Send it to John Boyle at jboyle@avlwatchdog.org or 828-337-0941. His Answer Man columns appear each Tuesday and Friday. The Watchdog’s reporting is made possible by donations from the community. To show your support for this vital public service go to avlwatchdog.org/support-our-publication/.

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