JAMAICAN businessman Roman Cowan on Wednesday worked feverishly to assist residents of Tampa Bay, Florida, to remove junk left by Hurricane Helene last month, as they struggled to clean up ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Milton.

Milton made landfall in Florida on Wednesday evening as an “extremely dangerous” Category 3 hurricane, packing life-threatening storm surges, extreme winds and flash flooding, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

“Data indicated that the eye of Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key in Sarasota County along the west coast of Florida,” the NHC said in an 8:30 pm bulletin.

Cowan, president of College Hunks Hauling Junk and Moving, said several residents of Tampa Bay were forced to remove a lot of junk from their homes which they placed on the streets following the passage of Hurricane Helene.

“People evacuated with the storm on the horizon with all that debris out on the streets. It was going to create a severe hazard for homes and anyone that was staying around, in terms of the wind and all that wood and the projectiles. The city was struggling to get rid of debris and all the furniture on the side of the streets.

“They reached out to us and a few other contractors, as well, to help with that process. That’s what we do: junk removal. It’s a little bit more hazardous than the traditional jobs that we do. Our team members also had to be prepared to evacuate and all, but we answered the call of the city. We unfortunately had to cancel or reschedule a few of the jobs we had on the schedule for our regular residents to prioritise the community in Tampa.

“We hauled away over 100 tonnes over the course of two days with the city and then we let our team members go home to go prepare themselves and evacuate as needed, as well.

“We started at 5:00 am [Monday] and went all day picking up junk and debris. The first half of Tuesday we had a few crews working, as well. We prioritise our team members’ safety so several members of our team had to evacuate so it wasn’t quite as much on Tuesday as it was on Monday,” Cowan said.

He said his team stands ready to assist with clean-up efforts after the passage of Milton.

“This second hurricane is a dead-on hit. This is the first time in 100 years that the Tampa Bay region will be hit directly,” said Cowan, who had concerns about the likely impact of the storm.

“We are going to support [residents] as best as we can and then ultimately once they are back on their feet, they are going to be doing similar to what we did, which is to help the community recover. The members of our teams have been working tirelessly, coming off of Helene. We all are going to band together to go through this,” he said.