BATON ROUGE – City-Parish crews will start removing debris from faith-based organizations and small businesses, Mayor-President Kip Holden announced Sunday.

According to a statement Sunday, East Baton Rouge Parish received approval from federal emergency officials to remove debris from businesses, churches, homeowners’ associations and others eligible for FEMA reimbursements.

“Our Baton Rouge citizens are looking to recover and rebuild as quickly as possible – a process that can’t fully begin until the debris from this devastating flooding event is removed from outside our homes and places of business,” Holden said. “I’m thankful to our partners at FEMA and GOHSEP for their recognition of how that recovery process very much extends to our faith-based organizations and the many businesses in East Baton Rouge Parish that were impacted by this disaster.”

Holden’s office said FEMA’s decision limits removing debris from those locations to just a single pass. Businesses should be aware of this policy and place any debris curbside.

No further debris collection efforts will be eligible for FEMA reimbursement, Holden said.

Residential areas will still receive multiple passes by debris removal crews.

Debris piles from large commercial areas like shopping and manufacturing centers must be removed by those commercial entities.

Crews have already collected more than 85,000 cubic yards of debris from residential areas. Holden’s office expects that number to grow.