AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – As temperatures drop, cleaning up debris from Helene remains a concern for those still waiting for their homes to be repaired.

We took a look at some neighborhoods still struggling to recover nearly two months after the storm.

I checked several neighborhoods in Richmond County. On Fairfield Drive, debris was piled higher than the average person, causing residents to worry for the neighborhood’s well-being.

“It looks the same and I’m fine with it, but most of my neighbors aren’t,” said Ed Rice, who lives on Fairfield Drive.

Rice says it’s almost two months to go, and he sees the same issues looming over his neighborhood.

“I couldn’t get out of Fairfield Drive for a couple of weeks. The log piles were so high you couldn’t see around Walton Way,” Rice said.

Others say they are worried about worsening temperatures and weather as home repair work looks ahead to the new year.

Jennifer Ellis, who lives on West Hills, said: “We need a whole new roof and it’s hard to get people to come out and even look at the roof. You can’t even see my front yard and it becomes where there are, you know, squirrels and all kinds of things that live there.

All of this piled up with an unclear cleanup plan is causing frustration, especially in communities off the main roads.

“It would be better for us to know, like, what the city’s plans are, strategically, what the next neighborhoods are like, how they’re developing them,” Ellis said.

Rice said, “The neighbors were very upset that we didn’t see the city or the county or the state for weeks on end. I don’t know what the current state is, but, you know, people were disappointed.”

Crews collected more than one million cubic yards of debris in Richmond County.

Residents say they see progress. But as things look to cool down, they want a better picture of what’s to come.

“I also think there’s a lot of work to be done and the communication would be better from the city as well,” Ellis said.

It’s still a tough task before we clean everything up.

Now that the days are shorter, residents are very concerned about the safety of areas with stored debris and limited street lighting.

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