00:00We want to talk about 13 months after Hurricane Helene, Georgia's harvest belt is still
00:05rebuilding with losses from orchards to farmlands. AccuWeather's Leslie Hudson is live in Mount Dora,
00:11Florida, with how Georgia and other southeastern states are working to recover after back-to-back
00:18hurricane seasons. And you're a little chilly this morning, I hear. Leslie.
00:23Leslie. Yes. Yes, Bernie, I should have brought my fleece. It is chilly for Florida. We're in the
00:3250s, which I know is not cold. But for us, this is definitely a chill. But we're here in Mount Dora
00:38at a very popular strawberry farm. This is a commercial grower here in central Florida.
00:43And just last year, Helene wiped out about 60 percent of these white tarps that you see. These
00:48are an integral part of strawberry growing. And the winds just came through here and knocked about
00:5360 percent of them out. They have since, of course, repaired those. But we're, as you mentioned,
00:58more concerned to our friends to the north in Georgia, who sustained significant damage,
01:04not only from Helene, but also Debbie and Milton. And we're 13 months after those storms. And that
01:09area of the country still under active rebuilding, trying to make their crops profitable. So when we
01:16talk about Georgia, it's really all about their growing season. And this is really the height of it
01:21right now. We have some video out in Georgia where many of those farmers have put their lifetime work
01:27into their fields, only to have them destroyed in a matter of hours from those hurricanes last year.
01:33According to Georgia's governor, Brian Kemp, Hurricane Helene was the largest weather catastrophe
01:37in the state's history. He says Georgia's forestry changed overnight and that many parts of the U.S.
01:44rely on Georgia farmers and timber growers to provide the food and fiber to many parts of the country.
01:50Georgia's number one industry, according to damage reports, is well over $1.25 billion. That was
01:58their timber loss just alone last year. And now many farmers face numerous tough decisions in Georgia
02:05in the wake of last year's aftermath, where Helene struck the fall season right at harvest when money was
02:12already in the fields.
02:15Hurricanes hit in the fall. And that's when a lot of our, you know, our big row crops that's at harvest.
02:21And so there's a lot of money out in the fields when these hurricanes hit. Margins are either razor-thin
02:28or negative. And if you have a couple of hurricanes in a row, you're on the hook for a tremendous amount
02:33of capital investment that you don't get a return on. You know, if it's, if it's pecans or something,
02:38it's, I'm not going to put another 10 to 20 years into this.
02:44So that's the biggest problem in Georgia. Many of the crops there take multiple years.
02:49Pecans can take seven to 10 years. That forestry area that was wiped out up to 20 years. So it's all
02:55about trying to be profitable and stretch that dollar for the farmer while they try and regrow.
03:00So, but it also was livestock and their chicken hatcheries that were also devastated in that part
03:06of Georgia. So over several billion dollars in losses in those two areas is alone. And now they're
03:12doing their best to try and recover not only Georgia, but here in the southeastern part of the
03:17country. Reporting live in Mount Dora, Florida, I'm Leslie Hudson. Back to you. All right. Thank you,
03:21Leslie, for that update.
Comments