How to win storm response and debris removal contracts as a tree company

The buyer's reimbursement depends on four federal requirements, and each one shows up as a clause in the contract.

• Competitive procurement under 2 CFR 200.317 to 200.327. Full and open competition, a cost or price analysis above the simplified acquisition threshold (250,000 dollars), and the required contract clauses (remedies over 250,000, termination over 10,000). 2 CFR 200.320 allows a noncompetitive award only when the emergency will not permit delay, which is why the contract is bid before the storm rather than after.
• Unit prices, with time and materials limited to 70 hours. FEMA's debris contracting guidance (RP9580.201) limits time-and-materials payment to the first 70 hours of actual work, the initial road-clearance push, and requires all other payment to be on unit prices by volume or weight. 2 CFR 200.318(j) allows time and materials at all only with a ceiling price and a determination that nothing else is suitable.
• No cost-plus-percentage-of-cost. 2 CFR 200.324 bars it. FEMA denied a Georgia university system's Hurricane Matthew claim because the contract was time and materials without a ceiling plus 20 percent overhead, and noted the disaster's median rate was 20.39 dollars a cubic yard against the claimed average of 49.14.
• No piggybacking. Using another agency's contract may jeopardize funding under FEMA's guidance, so each county bids its own or joins a regional joint bid written for the purpose.

FEMA's Public Assistance Program and Policy Guide, version 5 as amended in August 2025, is the current controlling document; check the current text with the buyer's emergency management office, because the guide changes between disasters.

Rates move during a storm when they have to. Columbia County, Florida raised Ceres Environmental's Helene rate from 10.48 to 14.98 dollars a cubic yard for days over 4,500 yards, on a 6,000,000- to 8,000,000-dollar cleanup. Monitoring is a separate contract with its own hourly rates (Alabama Region 1: 38 dollars an hour for a field monitor, 69 for a project manager; Bulloch County: 47.58 for a monitor and 109.31 for a grant consultant), and the monitor's load tickets are what the county submits to FEMA. Hand-loaded trucks are paid at 50 percent of volume and trucks without tailgates at 85 percent, which is why the primes run certified, placarded haul units.

The first-push hourly side, before the 70 hours run out, looks like Hyde County, North Carolina's tabulation: 85 to 260 dollars an hour for a 50-foot bucket truck, 80 to 250 for a 30-ton crane, 45 to 225 for a chipper, 30 to 90 for a climber with gear, and 400 to 650 for an 850-horsepower grinder. See Unit price contract.

Hauling debris by the cubic yard is a trucking business, and the national primes (DRC, Ceres, Southern Disaster Recovery, TFR and a few others) run it with subcontracted haul units. The lines that need a tree crew are the hazardous tree removals, the hangers and the stump extractions, and FEMA's Category A guidance sets the eligibility rules a tree company has to work inside:

• A hazardous tree is eligible when it is on public property or the right-of-way, the hazard was caused by the disaster, and a certified arborist, TRAQ holder or registered forester has documented the determination. Pruning, trimming and maintenance are never eligible.
• Hangers are paid per tree, not per limb; FEMA discourages per-limb pricing. The limb has to be 2 inches or more, in the right-of-way, and still hanging.
• A stump is paid per stump only if half or more of the root ball is exposed and extraction is required; otherwise it is flush-cut and paid by volume. Fill for the hole is a separate line.

The contractor's crew does the work; the monitor photographs and tickets every tree, hanger and stump with a GPS location and the arborist's determination. A tree company that already documents to that standard, and has a TRAQ holder to sign the determinations, is a subcontractor the primes want and a direct bidder a county can accept on the hazard lines. See MBE, WBE and DBE certification for government contracts.

Direct. Counties and regional joint bids (Alabama's county association runs one by region) solicit pre-positioned contracts on one-year terms with renewals, and many award to more than one contractor in ranked order. A tree company can bid the full schedule if it can stand up haul capacity through subcontracts, or, where the form allows partial awards, bid the hazardous tree, hanger and stump lines only. The bid needs the insurance the county sets (5,000,000-dollar umbrellas are common on storm contracts; check the current figure with the buyer), a performance bond once activated, evidence of the arborist and TRAQ credentials, a list of equipment with capacities, and references from prior declared events. Cities buy the same thing on a smaller scale as on-call emergency tree contracts: Nutley, New Jersey's required fifteen years of emergency experience and bid security of 10 percent or 20,000 dollars.

Subcontract. The primes hold contracts in dozens of counties they cannot staff at once and build subcontractor lists before the season. Registering with them, with the same credentials package, is the faster route into the first storm, at the prime's rate rather than the county's. Either way, the local advantage is real: a crew that is already in the county when the declaration comes works the first 70 hours while the prime's fleet is still on the interstate.

• Mobilization. A stated number of crews on site within 24 to 72 hours of the notice to proceed, with the county's emergency manager as the point of contact.
• Certified haul units. Every truck measured and placarded by the monitor before the first load; the placard sets the cubic yards paid per load.
• Documentation. Daily load tickets, hazard tree photographs and determinations, GPS locations, and crew time records for the first 70 hours. A load the monitor did not ticket does not exist.
• Debris management sites. Reduction by grinding or burning at the county's site, with environmental permits the county or prime obtains.
• Federal clauses. Equal opportunity, Davis-Bacon where it applies, the Byrd anti-lobbying certification, debarment certification and the clauses in 2 CFR 200 Appendix II. See Debarment and Emergency procurement.

A storm contract is bid in a quiet March for a season that may not come, on a schedule with forty lines written to a federal guide that changes between disasters. Finding the counties in your territory that are rebidding, reading the FEMA clauses in each one, and getting the credentials, equipment list and references in on time is the part that does not get done while the crews are working. We find the storm and emergency contracts you can actually win, we read every page of every one, we tell you why it fits, and we write the response, with the schedule and the federal certifications in the buyer's format. You set the prices and you sign it. Every response is built for one company and never reused. If you want to see which counties in your territory are pre-positioning this season, book a call; twenty minutes is enough to see what is open for you.