Clearing Storm Damaged Lots After a Hurricane

The storm has passed, you have walked the lot, and what used to be a wooded parcel is a tangle of snapped pines, hung up limbs and root balls standing on edge. Now you need to know what to do first, what can sit, and who to call for which part of it. We have cleared plenty of lots in that shape between Pensacola Beach and 30A, and it goes in an order most people do not guess.

Chainsaw crews and dirt crews are different jobs

The first call after a storm is almost never us. A tree leaning on the roof, a trunk hung up in the canopy of the oak next to it, anything that has to be taken apart in the air, that is tree service work. Those crews climb, rig and cut in pieces, and we do not. If there are wires down anywhere on the lot, that is the power company's job to make safe before anybody, us included, sets foot out there.

We show up for what is on the ground. Pines snapped off and laid across the lot, root balls tipped up with a crater behind them, brush piled where the wind left it, and ground that has to be put back before anybody can build on it. When a job needs both crews, the tree crew goes first. Get the standing hazards down, then we come in behind them with the machines. The other way around puts an excavator under something that has not finished falling.

What cannot wait and what can

Start with the insurance photos. Shoot the whole lot before anything moves, because once the debris is gone there is no proving what was there.

What cannot wait is anything blocking the way in or leaning on something you own. A tree across the driveway, a root ball heaved up against a slab or a foundation, debris jammed against a structure or a fence line. A tipped root ball next to a house is worth a hard look, because the ground under the edge of the foundation may have moved with the roots.

What can wait is most of the rest. A snapped pine in the back corner is not going anywhere. A crater on the far side of the lot can sit open until the ground dries enough to fix it right, and waiting is what keeps machines from tearing the lot up in the mud. Where the debris can go after a big storm also changes from storm to storm and county to county, so ask the county where yours goes, or ask us and we will help you find out.

Root balls and the holes they leave

A root ball standing on edge is the most dangerous thing on a storm damaged lot, and it does not look like it. The trunk is holding it up. Cut the trunk off flush and the whole mass can slam back down into its own crater. Chainsaw crews know this. Homeowners with a rented saw usually do not. Leave the trunk attached until a machine has hold of it.

We take them with the excavator, lift the ball, shake the dirt out of it, and set it where it can be cut down and loaded. Then the crater gets dealt with, and that is what decides whether the spot is buildable later. The loose dirt that came up with the roots is full of roots and organic muck. Push it back in the hole and it rots and settles, and the low spot comes back with every rain. We fill craters with clean sand from our pit at 3125 River Rd in Navarre, placed in lifts and compacted, the same way a pad gets built. That is part of the storm debris removal work we run every time this coast gets hit.

Saturated ground

After a hurricane the ground is not just wet, it is full. Rain on the front side, surge on the coastal lots, more rain on the back side. A tracked machine on ground in that condition sinks, ruts, and pumps the soil into soup.

The sugar sand around Navarre, Gulf Breeze and Pensacola Beach forgives this. It drains from the top down and firms up fast once the sun comes out. Head inland toward Milton, Pace, Crestview and the Yellow River bottoms and the clay holds that water long after the sky clears. On a clay lot we would rather stage the work than wreck the ground trying to hurry it. Get the access open and the hazards down, then let it drain before the heavy passes.

Coastal lots that took surge have one more surprise coming. Salt water kills what it soaks, and a live oak that looks fine right after the storm can drop its leaves later on. Give it time before you spend money saving it.

Getting the lot back to buildable

Once the debris is off, a storm damaged lot is a clearing job with holes in it. Stumps come out, craters get filled and compacted, the ground gets rough graded so water leaves instead of ponding in every low spot the storm made, and the silt fence goes back up, because the storm flattened whatever was standing before. Debris either gets ground on site with the forestry mulcher, which handles downed pine and brush well, or loaded into roll off and dump trucks and hauled.

If this was going to be a house lot before the storm, it still can be. The pad footprint gets grubbed clean of anything living or rotting, the elevations get reset, and your builder walks onto the same pad they would have gotten on a lot the storm never touched.

NOBL Sitework is a licensed general contractor (CGC1537340) clearing storm damaged lots across Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton, Escambia and Bay counties. If a storm left your lot in pieces, call us at 850-238-3307 and we will walk it with you, tell you what needs a tree crew and what needs us, and sort out the order.