Hurricane Florence has devastated tobacco crops in North Carolina
Hurricane Florence, which hit a week ago, flooded as much as 125 million pounds of the crop here, according to estimates by the
In
Blizzard and his son, Luke, lost 900,000 pounds of tobacco . Blizzard estimated the loss will be around
When a hurricane strikes a small agriculture community, it has a ripple effect on the economy, he said.
When the harvest is ruined, "it is just like a businessman owning a business and he leaves all of his inventory in his business, and the roof blows off, and everything is damaged with water," said
"It's the same thing with farmers. We got all of our inventory out there in the field. When it gets damaged like that, it is gone."
Since Florence, Blizzard said he's talked to hundreds of farmers who have experienced losses -- as much as 45 percent of the crop still is in the fields. All may not be wiped out but, he said, more will be lost than saved.
Blizzard has seven full-time employees and temporary workers who come from
"It does have an effect on the local economy when this happens, and it won't be something you get over in a couple of months -- it will be a couple of years," he said. "The impacts of these situations is very far-reaching. People tighten their belts, they stop spending and they stop making investments in equipment."
On Thursday, Blizzard surveyed the damage across his 750 acres of tobacco fields. The sun shined as temperatures reached nearly 90 degrees.
He grabbed a yellowing tobacco leaf and said, "when you walk out and grab a leaf and it is supposed to be firm and spongy and it feels like a wet dish rag, you got no potential."
The Blizzards also have 2,500 acres of sweet potatoes, cotton, wheat, corn and soybeans. They won't know how badly those were damaged until they reach harvest.
"Had this thing come in as a cat 3 or cat 4, and come across here, there would be nothing here," he said. "I am thankful our structures are still standing; our homes are still standing."
Blizzard, who has farmed for 41 years, has federal crop insurance, but could still end up in the red.
"I've been pushing numbers since it started raining that night," he said as he placed his hand over his face. "Will it pay our production costs? I don't know. I think honestly it will come up a little short."
The area has had a wet summer, which delayed his harvest by three weeks. If his crop had been on time, he thinks he would have lost far less.
"The growing season we have had made the hurricane much more catastrophic," Blizzard said.
That's true for his cousin who was picking much of his tobacco right up until the last hours before the storm.
"We got our corn out and our tobacco out before the storm hit," said
The Herrings still have soybeans and peanuts in the ground and won't know if the standing water damaged them until they harvest. They lost 25 percent of their tobacco during a rainstorm in early August. That accounts for 100,000 pounds of tobacco, which is worth
Brett said his great-grandfather, who also farmed, lived until he was 91 and never saw a flood. But the 29-year-old hasn't been as lucky. He's experienced four major hurricanes.
"You can't farm around bad weather," he said. "You can't figure on having a hurricane that is going to destroy your crop or you probably wouldn't farm."
He knows he has little control over where a hurricane strikes. So when the season comes, he always remembers, "it could be us."
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