COCKE COUNTY, Tenn. — Cocke County Mayor Rob Mathis posted a video on Facebook right before Thanksgiving. In it, he stands in front of a tall pile of debris caused by Hurricane Helene.
Mathis said progress has been made in cleaning up after the storm and repeated that message while speaking to WBIR on Monday afternoon, but there's still plenty of work to be done.
“One (stage of recovery) is the lifesaving — that’s the first few days; and then the life-sustaining, food, water, especially when utilities are out, and that’s weeks; and then the debris cleanup is stage three, which is what we’re in the middle of right now and that takes months; and then there’s the rebuild which takes years," he said.
Cleanup crews from Cocke County and the state government have collected "tens of thousands of cubic feet" of debris so far. Mathis said that represents less than 50% of the work done. He expects that total to at least double by the cleanup's end.
Different roads and pieces of land fall under different agencies' control. That coordination is going well but the scale of the cleanup means it will simply take time to complete, Mathis said.
He said he's appreciative of financial support from the state through a HEAL grant, which the state recently rewarded Cocke County. That money will be used to hire civilian contractors to expand the number of cleanup crews.
The debris is being collected at processing centers like the one in Mathis' video. Neighbors are welcome to call the Cocke County Mayor's Office to find a location to drop off debris. It's available at (423) 623-8791. People can also place piles on the shoulder of the road in front of their homes.
Either way, separating the debris into vegetation and metal piles before it's picked up will help the county government. Vegetation can be burned later, while pieces of metal must go to a landfill, Mathis said.
He said he is proud of how his county government has responded to Hurricane Helene overall. That said, a generation-defining event has caused changes that couldn't be controlled.
“The course of the river itself and the character of the river has changed. There are areas where the river is wider than it was, and there are some areas that used to be on the riverbank, but now the river has moved as good 50 feet away from where that riverbank was," he said.