TAMPA, Fla. – Towers of trash left over from Hurricane Helene still littered the Florida landscape Wednesday as Hurricane Milton barreled toward the Gulf Coast and trash haulers suspended efforts to remove the debris that could be hazardous in high winds.

With just hours to go before Milton, a Category 4 storm that was already pushing “tornadic supercells,” was expected to make landfall somewhere south of Tampa Bay, the garbage trucks that had been working around the clock had largely disappeared .

And in Tampa, those who chose not to join the exodus from the city gave those piles of destroyed furniture and other household items a wide lead.

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“I’m just afraid the wind is going to pick that stuff up and it’s going to be a projectile,” said Heather McClellan, 34, as she walked past a front yard with a pile of furniture destroyed by Helene.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said crews were able to clear a mountain of trash.

“So in just over 48 hours, and they worked all night, into the wee hours of the morning in (counties) like Manatee, Sarasota and Pinellas, they were able to remove 55,000 cubic yards of debris,” he said . “So that’s over 3,000 truckloads of debris.”

DeSantis said crews on the most vulnerable barrier islands were able to remove at least half of the wreckage.

Sandra Tapfumaneyi, head of the Sarasota County Emergency Management Agency, said they did the best they could.

“Normally you would have months to clean up that debris, and you can’t do much in a few days,” she said. “The province, along with the municipalities, we had workers and crews going from sidewalk to sidewalk trying to get the stuff to the landfill as quickly as possible.”