Nobody has counted them all yet, but there probably are several hundred more at Bay Memorial Walking Park by the Garden Club. The situation is similarly bleak at Harvey De Mathis Walking Park.
In fact, stumps have rendered a fair number of Panama City's park effectively useless, said Panama City City Manager Mark McQueen. They're a tripping hazard. They're unsightly. Landscapers say not to grind them down and plant on top of them because the air pockets that creates can kill the new plants. There's just not much to do with them.
"I hate the stumps," McQueen said.
For the past couple of months, McQueen has been chipping away at the solution to the stump problem, trying to convince the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pick up a portion of the cost to remove them.
Current FEMA policy will help governments clean up a park, hauling away fallen trees and clear cutting trees that are damaged or leaning. FEMA also will take care of stumps where 50 percent of the root ball is exposed.
But the stumps from all those trees that were removed or fell — those aren't covered by FEMA policy. They either have to stay put or be cleaned up on the city's dime, which would be "enormously expensive," McQueen said.
McQueen is hoping to get disaster-specific guidance from the administrator, where FEMA will shoulder a share of the cost because Panama City is designated a "Tree City USA."
"My argument is, it's made the park unfunctional. We can't use that park for anybody. It's unusable," McQueen said. "We promoted trees. There were programs to help our natural resources. We could have clear cut them a long time ago, but we didn't because we chose to have a lot of trees, and that's a good thing."
A good thing until a monster Category 4 hurricane knocks down an estimated one million trees.
The city has a plan in place to "Re-Tree PC" because the commitment to trees, which help with water control, air quality and provide a retreat from the hot Florida sun, is still there. But in the meantime, there are the stumps.
The local field agents from FEMA have bought into McQueen's idea, according to McQueen, and are helping the city pen the request.
"Just getting past the field agents and their receptivity to want to help us write this is big," McQueen said. "They are willing to help us because they see it."
But at the same time, McQueen is cognizant that FEMA likely will be cautious about setting a potential precedent that could prove costly. He also has been working on it for weeks now.
Knowing that, he remains optimistic that some sort of deal will be struck where FEMA will help with at least a portion of the stumps.
"I'm not even saying 100 percent, I don't think that's realistic to ask the federal government to come in and remove every stump," McQueen said. "But I do think that in the common areas, we need to have some percentage of our stumps removed and I need the help of FEMA to be able to fund that."
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