A $50 million clean-up project to remove debris from Hurricane Irma has begun in the Florida Keys where a crew lifted a sunken motorhome from a canal.
The project started Friday and will target 103 of the most impacted canal in the Keys. It will include a crew of 60 people, 15 barges and five sonar boats. The project is slated to take several months.
Keys officials say they struggled to get funding from the federal government for the clean-up efforts and eventually obtained alternative funding from the Emergency Watershed Protection Program.
FEMA does not have a reimbursement policy for removing hurricane debris from canals.
Local officials called the funding a miracle and said they did not want to pass along the clean-up costs to residents who had already been through so much since Hurricane Irma slammed through the state last fall.
