City Council receives update on Hurricane Helene recovery

On Monday, Spartanburg City Council received an update on the impact Hurricane Helene had on our city and our community's ongoing recovery efforts since the worst storm in living memory blew through our region.

Providing an overview during the agenda item reserved for staff updates, City Manager Chris Story first praised community members in Spartanburg for supporting efforts to bring their neighborhoods back to normal, assisting each other with debris removal in yards and driveways or by simply staying home and off the roads in the early days of recovery efforts. Citing acts of kindness he'd seen firsthand, Story recognized that residents did a lot of "heavy lifting" to get Spartanburg through the storm's initial recovery.

According to Story, nearly the entire city lost power, though no official percentage of the number of households losing power is known. Telecommunications was also down for nearly all of the City, and remains so for some residents, though the city's largest provider, Spectrum has said all customers will have service restored by sometime Wednesday.

City Public Works teams responded to 367 calls for trees fallen into the public right-of-way, many of those calls including multiple trees. While historically high, those numbers do not capture the hundreds more trees that fell entirely on private property. Teams initially prioritized clearing roadways enough for emergency vehicles, making subsequent passes to further clear the roadways.

A total of 170 structures received significant structural damage during the storm, almost exclusively due to fallen trees. An additional 269 structures had other kinds of damage, such as having shingles blown off roofs or more minor hits from falling trees and limbs. In all, 35 structures in the city reported flood damage. The scope of the storm's damage was unprecedented, and the scale was citywide, with no neighborhood escaping significant effects. Attempting to contextualize the magnitude of the damage, Story said, "the scale of that is unlike any that we have seen in recent lifetimes."

In addition to working to clear roadways and repair damaged infrastructure, the City also partnered with relief organizations to deliver food and provide support for those most vulnerable as a result of the storm. City leadership worked to help secure Denny's Mobile Relief Diner, which served over 3,500 meals over two days to city and county residents. The City also connected with food distributors, partnering with Zion Williamson's philanthropic office and the USC-Upstate Men's Basketball team to distribute a total of 1,100 pre-packaged food boxes from Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina, based in Charlotte, NC. Grocery distributors provided additional food deliveries, which city employees sorted, boxed, and delivered. In all the City and its partners made 2,500 total distributions of food at 11 affordable multifamily housing sites scattered throughout the city. Once their power was restored, the City's community centers were opened for residents, many of whom were still without electricity, providing a place to shower and charge phones.

As the storm's aftermath has moved into its cleanup phase, City teams and contractors have begun the enormous task of removing the many hundreds of fallen trees and debris that line nearly every street in Spartanburg. A total of five teams of contractors are assisting the City's Public Works team in removing the debris, with more crews potentially being added in the coming days. Teams are working seven days per week, on a 12-hour, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. schedule until all the storm debris is removed from City streets.

Crews will make multiple passes throughout the city, meaning residents do not need to rush to get all debris to the curb immediately and should not stack so much material at the curb that the roadway is blocked to traffic. Streets are prioritized based on the volume of debris and its impact on vehicular and pedestrian safety, with teams working in a rotation that mirror's the City's garbage collection schedule.

Teams will also only remove debris from a public right-of-way, and will not enter residents' yards to collect material. Only trees and other organic material will be collected by City teams. Construction and demolition debris must be disposed of by the contractor performing the work, though tree removal contractors may leave their debris at the curb for pickup by City crews. Story told Council that the cleanup efforts are still in their early phases, and for the time being, no estimate can be made for how long it will take to remove all storm debris from city streets. The City will continue to share updates on the progress of that effort routinely through its web and social media channels.

For more from Monday's City Council meeting, follow this link to view the full video.

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