Removing debris left by Hurricane Ida will take three months longer than originally expected and cost $200,000 more, Pike County supervisors learned Tuesday.
Curbside pickup was projected to end Dec. 31, but that date was moved into January, then February, and is now expected to take until the end of March, Garrett Smith of Neel-Schaffer engineers told the board.
Also, the original maximum costs of $720,000 for removal and $225,000 for monitoring are not enough.
“We are going to exceed those numbers,” Smith said, saying each amount will increase by $100,000.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency will reimburse most of that, he said. “Y’all are on the hook for 121⁄2%,” Smith said.
Supervisors were not happy with the news.
“I’m just real disappointed,” said Supervisor Robert Accardo, saying the contractor should have had a better estimate of the location and amount of debris to be pickup up.
Smith said the debris amounts were “a very rough estimate” made shortly after the Aug. 29 storm.
Accardo was also displeased the cost will exceed estimates.
“That’s not what our citizens want to hear, us down here increasing the costs like this,” Accardo said.
Board president Jake Gazzo said he doesn’t want any more extensions.
“I don’t want this to go past March,” Gazzo told Smith.
Supervisors approved the latest installments of $111,584 to Land Development Co. for removal and $24,852 to DebrisTech for monitoring.
