CLAM PASS PARK
Clean-up crews are waiting until Tuesday to pick up hurricane debris from the water at Clam Pass Park. High winds have proven to be an obstacle for crews to get the job done.
Crews are looking for just about anything and everything in the water.
Collier County got the ball rolling on day one after Hurricane Ian, starting to pick up thousands of cubic yards of debris from local waterways.
Clam Pass Park is the next place on the list to get cleaned up.
Clam Pass Park. CREDIT: WINK News
Hurricane Ian left many hidden hazards behind, so you never know what’s hidden in the local waters.
“We do make sure we’re still wearing our shoes, our flip flops when walking around,” Greg Schurkui said while at Clam Pass Park.
“We’ve seen everything from shipping containers to wicker furniture stuck in the mangroves, sailboats to a pontoon boat with the front of the pontoon sticking out of the water,” Dennis Hill said while at Clam Pass Park.
Collier County project manager for stormwater management, Pawel Brzeski, made interesting discoveries while working to clean the waterways.
“My favorite find was a rock em’ sock em’ robot which somebody’s missing, but it’s mine now,” Brzeski said.
Cleaning begins at Clam Pass Park on Tuesday. CREDIT: WINK News
You can still find just about anything in the Gulf all this time since Hurricane Ian.
“Coolers and chairs and tables, planks and bits of docks, there’s so much stuff out there,” Brzeski said.
That’s why you’ll see trucks coming out on the beach at Clam Pass Park on Tuesday morning. That’s when the three-day process of clearing what’s expected to be about 2,000 to 3,000 cubic yards of debris from the Gulf begins.
“They’re starting off with a barge to collect as much debris as they can by hand,” Brzeski said.
They’re working as quickly as possible because they know that beachgoers and the rest of Collier County want to get back to normal.
To ensure that happens, Collier County is asking anyone coming to Clam Pass to give their crews plenty of room and to wait for a kayak launching area to clear off their equipment before going out or coming in. Crews are expected to finish by the weekend.
WINK NEWS