Hurricane Season Cleanup Guide: Before, During the Wait, and After the Storm

Every June, Florida starts the same group project. Having cleared a lot of storm debris across this state, here's our honest playbook — the before-part most people skip, and the after-part where the right order of operations saves real money and misery.

Before the storm: your junk is the hazard

Wind doesn't create projectiles; it finds them. The most damaging objects after a storm are frequently things that were already junk before it: the trampoline nobody jumps on, the rotted fence section, the patio set past its prime, the half-dismantled shed "project," the pile of fence boards beside the garage.

Do this in early June, not when a cone appears:

• Retire the marginal outdoor stuff now. If the patio set wouldn't survive a garage sale, it won't survive 90 mph winds either — except now it's airborne.
• Deal with the leaning shed and the loose fence panels. A shed that's "probably fine" becomes a debris field that's definitely yours.
• Clear the staging piles. Lumber, pavers, old pool equipment alongside the house — secure it or send it away.
• Don't start tree work with a storm inside five days. A trimmed pile the county hasn't collected is a curb full of missiles. Trim early in the season or wait it out.

One truckload of pre-season junk removal is the cheapest hurricane insurance you can buy.

After the storm: the order of operations

When it passes — and after you've handled safety basics (downed lines are the fire department's, not yours) — work in this order:

1. Access first. Clear the driveway, walkways, and anything pinning doors and gates. You need to be able to get out, and help needs to be able to get in.

2. Document before you move things. Insurance photos of structural and property damage before the cleanup. Debris piles are evidence; photograph them where they fell.

3. Separate as you stack. Counties run debris missions with strict sorting: vegetative debris (limbs, fronds) in one pile, construction debris (fence, roofing, soffit) in another, appliances and e-waste separate, normal household trash separate. Mixed piles get skipped — and a skipped pile sits for weeks.

4. Watch the wet stuff clock. Soaked carpet, mattresses, and upholstered furniture grow mold within about 48 hours in Florida heat. These can't wait for a county mission three weeks out. Get them out of the house immediately, even if just to the garage, and off the property fast.

What the county takes — and what it doesn't

Post-storm county debris collection is genuinely useful and genuinely slow. After a major storm, expect multiple passes spread over weeks, vegetative debris prioritized, and hard limits: most missions won't take household junk that "joined" the pile, won't go onto your property (curb only — getting it there is on you), and won't take mixed loads.

That gap — into the truck from wherever it sits, on a date you choose, mixed loads fine — is exactly what private hauling is for. After named storms, our crews run extended hours, prioritizing blocked driveways and safety hazards, then full pile removal. We're usually days out when county missions are weeks out.

The two-list system

Keep it simple. List one — immediately: anything wet (carpet, mattresses, upholstery), spoiled-fridge contents and dead appliances, debris blocking access, hanging-by-a-thread fence sections. List two — within a couple of weeks: the stacked limb piles, the destroyed patio set, the shed remains, the pool cage screens.

List one is worth paying for speed. List two can mix county pickup with a single private haul for whatever the mission won't take.

The honest pitch

We'd rather haul your pre-season junk in June than your post-storm debris in September — it's cheaper for you and nothing's wet. Either way, two photos through the quote form gets you a free estimate, and after a storm, the earlier you're in the queue, the sooner the curb is yours again.