AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – It’s been 50 days since Hurricane Helene made its way to our area.

The road to recovery across the two-state hasn’t been a fast or easy one.

Many people have been working long days and nights to get back to where we used to be.

On Saturday, Project City Serve spent the early afternoon and evening thanking our local heroes.

In Richmond County, trucks have picked up more than 1 million cubic yards of debris, and Columbia County is sitting at more than 900,000 cubic yards.

This fall has been full of emotions — both good and bad — and Leaders say nothing brings a smile to faces quite like food and fun.

Project City Serve gathered at the Augusta Commons for food trucks, a free meal for local heroes and fun as a way to say thank you to those who have given clean-up efforts their all.

“Things were going crazy because of the storm. As a committee, we joined together and said, you know, there’s a lot of service going on in the city, but we need to celebrate it,” said Luke Niday, executive director of the City of Alliance.

“A lot of the first responders have been super excited that somebody would just say thanks. A lot of them had to work 16-hour days, 18-hour days just to help in the course of the storm. And some of them got some of them got told thanks, and some of them got cussed out. So, it’s a great honor just to be able to say, ‘Hey, we’re thankful for what you doing and we see you,” he said.

As crews continue to work, they ask that you have patience.

Officials say to not burn your debris.

They say it’s so dry that even something as small as the end of a cigarette can cause big problems.

If you have debris, make sure it is vegetation only and it’s in a pile on the street but not blocking the roadway.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – A man has died after being hit by a vehicle in a hit-and-run crash on Saturday.

The Richmond County Coroner’s Office says they responded to Wellstar MCG emergency room in reference to a pedestrian fatality.

The coroner’s office says the victim was struck by a vehicle at 10th and Greene streets.

The victim was taken to Wellstar MCG by EMS, where he was later pronounced dead at 8:57 p.m., the coroner’s office says.

Officials say the man’s identification will be released later.

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AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – As concerns grow from residents about the ongoing debris clean-up status, we’re digging deeper into what the city’s plans are and where they stand right now.

We’re officially on day 50 of clean-up in Augusta and Richmond County.

Crews are comfortably picking up and grinding down 35,000 cubic yards per day.

It’s a process they say they’re almost ready to transition to the next phase of clean-up.

The biggest question on everyone’s mind is when all the debris will be picked up in Augusta.

Steve Cassell with ISM Engineering is in charge of the operation in Augusta.

He says despite what you still see on the roads, they are about halfway done.

“We got about 135 trucks here, and it’s going well. But I will say this, everything’s going to be picked up before we go,” said Cassell.

Crews collected and grinded 1.2 million out of the estimated 2 million they’re expecting to bring in.

Cassell says he understands residents’ confusion about trucks being inconsistent in locations.

But he says that’s due to unexpected circumstances that come with this scale of an operation.

“There’s still a lot of utilities down. You know, they’re abandoned utilities, basically, they’re lying in the piles. So, they can’t pull those out. They can’t pull those piles if there’s utilities in it, because it could pull a pole down or something like that,” he said. “We’ve talked to all the drivers. Say you want to get on the street and style the street, there are monitors well, but each truck has a monitor. They’ve got assigned areas that they’re supposed to move through as they go. But you know, they’re also these trucks that are breaking down. They have hydraulic issues at times. So, we’ve had several of them go down.”

It’s a long process crews will need to revisit communities several times depending on what crews face.

“Typically, the stumps would be the last thing we pick up. There’s a special truck for that, and we do have some stump crews that are going around and picking those things up,” said Cassell.

It’s a job bigger than your average garbage route pick-up.

It will be hard to put a definitive timeline on yet, but they’re getting closer to finding out what the end looks like.

“We’ll be finishing up the first pass in a lot of these areas over the next couple of weeks and going to the second pass. So that’ll really determine what our final volume will be,” said Cassell.

Cassell says another challenge for them is the rainy conditions workers are starting to battle through.

Thursday’s weather caused crews to pick up about 10,000 less debris than normal.

But they say they are still on pace with hitting their 90-day clean-up goal to get 100% federal reimbursement.

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