Cape Coral, FL Hurricane Preparedness: Storm Debris (2026)

Section 8-31 lets the City Manager, or a designee, authorize collection, removal, and disposal of emergency and disaster-generated debris from any property after a declared state of local emergency, whether it's public land, public or private roads, private vacant property, or gated communities, to restore safe and sanitary conditions and protect improved property from immediate threat. The ordinance defines debris broadly to include hazardous conditions that block movement and transportation, endanger properties and waterways, breed disease and vermin, or increase fire risk, and removal isn't limited to the emergency period itself; it continues expeditiously until the community's safety and economic recovery are restored.

Subsection (b) formally creates the Emergency and Disaster-generated Debris Removal Program and folds in every unimproved property already enrolled in the city's lot mowing program under Section 9-81 automatically. Subsection (c) authorizes the city and its agents to enter private, unimproved property specifically to clear canal rights-of-way of storm debris, but only after the City Clerk publishes notice in a newspaper of general circulation warning affected owners the work is coming. Despite all that authority, subsection (d) draws a hard line: nothing in Section 8-31 shall require the city to clear and remove emergency and disaster-generated debris from private property, meaning improved private lots and yards are the homeowner's own responsibility to clear after a storm, not the city's.