Hays County’s recovery from the Memorial Day weekend flood in 2015 is ongoing, and the Commissioners Court received an update on the county’s debris removal program on Tuesday.

The county has identified 103 sites near the Blanco River throughout the county that need debris removal since the flood, and since December, 16 of the sites have been cleared.

“This will help protect our assets and help the river recover and help the community recover as we continue down this path and move forward,” Commissioner Will Conley said.

Since December, 23,709 cubic yards of debris have been removed.

“[A rising river] carries quite a bit of debris down the river and in this case deposits debris along the river,” said Will Little, director of construction with H.R. Gray, the firm overseeing the removal process. “That debris, if you do have another rise, can be picked up and can impact a low-water bridge crossing or someone else’s property. Sometimes you can visualize it like torpedoes in the water, these logs or trees. So it’s important to get that debris removed.”

The exact amount of debris to be removed remains unknown. So far, the contractor has exceeded estimates of how many cubic yards of debris would need to be removed. One of the sites was estimated to contain 6,000 cubic yards of debris, but by the time removal was complete, 11,000 cubic yards had been cleared from the area.

Sites from which debris is being removed will be reseeded with trees and plants native to Hays County.

The county has received a $1.7 million grant, which requires a 10 percent match, to help fund the debris removal program. The exact cost of debris removal is not yet known because the county is paying based on the amount of debris removed.

County staff estimated the debris removal program would be complete by May, the two-year anniversary of the flood.

“The sensible thing to do, I think, is to remove the debris that will be a future problem, because we know we will have another flood,” county Judge Bert Cobb said. “That’s just part of living in Texas. We don’t want to cause more damage because of our lack of doing something.”