Dewberry has been awarded a contract to provide disaster debris management planning and consulting services for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Task Force. The taskforce includes the City of Philadelphia, as well as Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, and Chester counties.

The firm will be assessing each of the counties in terms of their readiness to respond to the requirements of a debris cleanup operation. Following the assessment, a training exercise will be developed and delivered to provide an opportunity for the counties to practice responding to the debris cleanup requirements of a disaster.

This is the second largest multi-county metropolitan region that Dewberry has supported with debris management consulting services in the past year. Recently, a similar project was concluded for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which includes more than 15 cities and counties in the Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., region.

As major storms in the U.S. have consistently proven, debris management can be critical to a community’s successful recovery. Clean-up efforts require advance planning and coordination between government entities and the private sector, and must address land disposal space, transport equipment, and emergency response personnel. Debris from wind and flooding can include trees and other vegetation, sediment, construction materials, appliances, vehicles, and electronic waste.