CAPE CORAL, Fla.- Downed trees, roofs damaged, bundles of debris lining the streets alongside SW 1st Avenue in Cape Coral. It's an image you would expect to see during the twister's aftermath; not something Mindy Edwards was expecting to deal with almost three weeks later.
"I called WastePro and told them what happened. They told me that everything had to be cut into four foot sections and tied together so that it was easy for them to pick up," says Mindy Edwards.
"They've put everything they can in the cans each week. The stuff they are told to bundle is too big to bundle," said John Olexa, a Cape Coral resident.
Ms. Edwards' front yard has plenty of storm debris from the tornado that struck the Cape back on January 9th,
prompting her to make a trip to the hardware store. "I went out and bought a chainsaw thinking that if i got everything cut down to size that they would take it," said Edwards. "I didn't expect it all in one week. but they didn't take anything the first week," she added.
She started placing the storm debris into trash cans and Waste Pro has been collecting those.
But, the root of the problem was the way Waste Pro identified this neighborhood for storm pickup.
"We were told that we weren't in the red box that the tornado hit," said Olexa.
"My neighbor lost his roof, another neighbor lost her screen cage, so we had significant damage," said Edwards.
People living up and down this street have a simple request. "It would be nice if WastePro was a little more considerate of people who did have storm damage beyond the zone of the tornado," said Edwards.
Fox 4 reached out to WastePro. However, it was after their business hours. On their website, they have a listing of their tornado cleanup procedure.
