ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Pile after pile, on street after street—the debris seems endless in Shore Acres.
“10-foot piles out there. People’s entire lives,” said Jonathon Micklitsch, who lives in Shore Acres.
ABC Action News visited the neighborhood last Thursday.
The Shore Acres community was hit hard by Hurricane Helene’s record-setting storm surge in September.
Hurricane Milton only made things worse in October.
“It was horrible. I mean, I feel for some of these people. You know everyone’s in a different demographic, different thing, and there’s people that will never recover. They have nowhere to go. They’re living in homes that probably shouldn’t be lived in because they can’t afford to go somewhere else,” said Micklitsch.
The debris piles have been here for weeks in many cases, now causing a new problem.
“We went from zero rats, never having a rat problem the years I’ve been here, to now we have rats,” said Micklitsch.
This is a new issue.
“I’ve never had a rat problem. I’ve got rat feces, just cleaned it up yesterday. It’s back. We’ve got traps,” said Micklitsch.
So far, they’re not really working.
“Next door, I’ve seen rats running through their junk piles. Granted, my street isn't anything like the other streets. We’ve been very fortunate,” said Micklitsch.
This is why people are worried the rats are worse on streets with even more debris.
“The fact is, we all are dealing with rats now. We’ve never had the problem before,” said Micklitsch.
Frustration is growing, and so is concern that the rat problem is too.
Neighbors are calling on Mayor Ken Welch.
“They’re already making jokes about the piles. They’re calling them Welch piles,” said Micklitsch.
A sign reading, "Where’s Welch?" was sitting on one pile.
People are wondering what’s taking so long. It's even more pressing now that they're seeing rats.
“The bottom line is, it becomes a health concern at some point if we don’t get the trash picked up. We need to get the trash picked up so we can alleviate some of the problems we didn’t have,” said Micklitsch.
ABC Action News saw a claw truck when we visited the neighborhood last Thursday. But people believe the removal isn’t happening fast enough.
“We want it done as soon as possible. People just want to put it behind them and try to move forward and forget it. This was a heck of a storm,” said Micklitsch.
The city posted this on social media on Oct. 25 about debris removal:
Today, we're celebrating progress. Two weeks after Milton, our debris contractors have cleared more than 200,000 cubic yards of debris — twice as much as Hurricanes Idalia and lan combined.
Our trucks are out from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., working hard to clean up our city. We estimate that both storms will generate a total of 1 million cubic yards. We are nearly 25% complete and on track to finish in our 90-day window.
A huge thank you to our dedicated crews and our resilient community for your support and patience during this recovery.
Together, we'll see this through!
ABC Action News reached out to the city for comment on the rat issue and an update on debris pick up. Representatives have not responded yet.
