Most cities prepare detailed plans for severe weather, but fewer are ready for the waste-management challenges that follow. Once flooding recedes or ice melts, routine collection can become a large-scale emergency operation involving thousands of tons of debris and rapidly growing service backlogs.

Recent responses in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., show how connected mapping, routing and service-request systems can help cities scale their operations after a storm.

Milwaukee faced a record flood in August 2025, when more than 14 inches of rain fell in less than 24 hours. Some homes were submerged under three to four feet of water, while both of the city’s transfer stations became unusable because of flood damage, power loss and failed compactors.

Without the transfer stations, crews had to haul waste directly to landfill, adding between one hour and 90 minutes to each trip. Milwaukee deployed more than 50 municipal heavy machines and another 45 supplied by three contractors, ultimately clearing more than 11,000 tons of debris.

Its data systems helped coordinate that response. Although the city had begun rolling out Routeware SmartCity only about a month earlier, it had already connected its 311 call center and legacy work-order system to its routing platform, with Esri serving as the central source for location data.

Officials reclassified bulky-waste requests under a dedicated flood-debris category. That produced live heat maps showing the most affected areas at both citywide and street level, replacing the paper maps previously used by crews. Milwaukee completed the cleanup in two months, compared with four to six months for a similar earlier flood. The collected data also supported a $195 million FEMA grant for households in three counties.

Washington, D.C., dealt with a different kind of disruption. Seven inches of snow were followed by sleet and freezing rain, creating a dense layer of ice that crews called “snowcrete.” With temperatures below freezing for 10 consecutive days, the city suspended bulk collection for two weeks.

When service resumed, all the missed pickups returned at once. Rather than process the backlog strictly in first-in, first-out order, the operations team grouped requests geographically and increased deployment from six trucks to eight in the densest areas.

The city then created eight additional routes covering 5,000 missed trash and recycling requests. Crews received quick training guides on their phones and were on the road by 6 a.m. the following day. As residents reported more uncollected waste, officials shifted to clearing entire alleys and uploaded customized routes in bulk.

Documentation was another important part of the response. Through an Open311 integration, crews photographed completed stops, with the images logged in a system accessible to residents. The records helped address questions about delays and reject fraudulent damage claims.

The two responses shared a common feature: neither city had to build its core emergency workflows during the crisis. Their collection systems, mapping tools and 311 data had already been connected, allowing normal operations to expand into storm-response efforts. The examples show why waste-management technology can form part of emergency planning before the next severe weather event occurs.

Sources: Smart Cities Dive.