By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, October 4, 2024

In what will go down as one of the deadliest of hurricanes to hit the Southeast U.S., Helene left a path of tragic loss and destruction spanning 900 miles from landfall over portions of 10 southeastern states.

Tragically, the death toll has risen above 160, with hundreds of people still missing.

Entire communities, communications and infrastructure have been wiped out, especially in parts of western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee, where 35 to over 40 inches of rainfall in a 24-hour period brought record flooding of biblical proportions to mountain towns.

While the category four hurricane damaged coastal towns in Florida’s big bend, it quickly trekked north to dump all of that moisture, creating flash floods and wind damage in southern Georgia and Alabama, and unfathomable destruction in mountain towns of Appalachia.

The overall estimates continue to grow in terms of estimated cost and the sheer scope of the ongoing emergency. The full extent is unknown due to impassable roads and the inability to communicate. The pressing needs are basics, like food, water, medicines, fuel, generators.

Extensive damage to crops in affected areas include pecans, peaches, other fruits, cotton, peanuts, as well as any unharvested corn and soybeans already suffering from drought. 

There are as yet uncounted livestock losses, farms sustaining loss of stored feed, and along with crop losses, washed out pastures.

One dairy farmer reported his pasture of cows were swept away by the flood, with a few surviving. A video captured in east Tennessee shows the power of water, carrying a large barn filled with 500 round bales away from its footers.

Jay Moon has a dairy farm in north Georgia; he reports that people from south Georgia are coming north for food, and essential supplies are dwindling in affected and non-affected areas just as humanitarian efforts are able to ramp up.

Moon also works for USDA Farm Service Agency. What he sees as the primary concern is communication and travel that are necessary to both assess and reach farmers with assistance. For now the focus is on clean up and infrastructure and finding ways to get the essentials to people.

“I think there is a lot going on that we do not know about due to no phone service,” says Moon. He and his wife drove to south Georgia where her parents live. “It’s hard to understand how bad it is. Some areas you still can’t get to.”

Georgia Milk Producers executive director Bryce Trotter reports that over 20 dairy farms have been impacted from significant wind damage to freestalls and parlors, to downed fencing, missing roof-tin, and some mangled center pivots.

All 20 were still without electricity five days after the hurricane swept through and are operating on generator power where possible. Most have a generator running the parlor, refrigeration system and wells.

Communication there is difficult, and GMP is working to coordinate with farmers via text messages and to arrange fuel deliveries and find generators for those needing them for their dairies. This will be a pressing issue throughout affected communities in the Southeast.

The storm’s path from Valdosta, Georgia, north of Augusta has also taken down transmission lines and cell towers, and smaller communities outside of Augusta may be without power for more than a week.

“It’s going to take time to dig out from this,” Trotter wrote. “There will be downed trees and debris piled up for a very long time. Augusta is the second largest metro area in Georgia.”

He said this is ‘déjà vu’ to 2018’s Hurricane Michael, except that one moved east, not west.

As rough as it is in Georgia, the situation is quite dire for those in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. Communities and infrastructure throughout the great Smoky Mountains have been either severely damaged or completely wiped out.

One dairy farmer in that region responded to a Farmshine message to verify that he is okay, but there were many fatalities in his community, and they have sustained serious property damage. The roads are impassable, and so they are having to dump their milk.

Reports indicate that dairy farmers in western North Carolina are having to move cattle from flooded and damaged facilities. Farms have reported losing cattle, though numbers are not known at this time. Some have reported losing all of their feed and pasture.

It will take years for western North Carolina and east Tennessee to recover from this as the damage and extent of the situation is difficult to describe as the full extent is yet untold because of the inability to fully communicate and connect with the outside world.

From forestry services to infrastructure engineers to Starlink satellite trucks to Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse, and all manner of humanitarian food aid groups are just beginning to filter into the hardest hit areas, which is challenging in the mountain communities of Appalachia cut off by mud- and debris-covered or completely washed out roads and bridges.

In conjunction with Plain Compassion Crisis Response based in Honey Brook, Pennsylvania, Blessings of Hope based in Ephrata, with a warehouse also in Kentucky, has taken three trucks filled with food and disaster relief supplies and other critical items to western North Carolina. The plan is to continue with a truck a day.

American Farm Bureau reports the devastation in rural and farm communities has been widespread, and it will be weeks—possibly months—before knowing the full impact of the storm. AFBF has organized a list of non-profit aid organizations on the ground helping the farming communities impacted by Helene, go to https://www.fb.org/issue/hurricane-helene

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