BATON ROUGE - Officials say approximately 75 percent of the debris from the August flood has been collected from Baton Rouge and unincorporated areas of East Baton Rouge Parish.

The mayor-president's office said Thursday in a news release crews have completed their first sweep of the city but will return to flooded areas a total of three times to try to collect everything.

Adam Smith, interim environmental services director, said officials believe the flood created 1.8 million to 2 million cubic yards of debris.

Mayor-President Kip Holden said in a statement debris removal teams have collected more than 1.5 million cubic yards of flood debris in just over six weeks.