GAINESVILLE, Ga. — More than a year ago, Hurricane Helene swept through the southeast, destroying everything in its path. The storm was responsible for over 200 fatalities in the United States, making it the deadliest hurricane to hit the contiguous U.S. since Katrina in 2005, according to the National Hurricane Center’s Tropical Cyclone Report.
Out of the different agricultural sectors, the poultry industry was hit the hardest by Helene, according to the American Farm Bureau. More than 80 percent of Georgia’s poultry production value is concentrated in the counties that were the most severely affected, and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced that over 107 poultry houses were destroyed or damaged by the high winds of the storm.
After all this time, families, communities and businesses are still feeling the effects of the hurricane’s wreckage, especially Georgia’s poultry and agriculture industries.
Originally, the storm was headed for southeast Georgia, but it changed course and hit the southwest area instead. Poultry farmers couldn’t prepare for a storm as big as Helene, especially when they didn’t see it coming.
“I was in it, and I’d never seen anything like it,” Vann Wooten, Jeff Davis County farmer, said. “You don’t know anything about it until it’s happened to you. I never dreamed of a storm affecting us like this one has, way up in the state.
“I’m a poultry farmer, and I row crop too, but it got all 10 of my [broiler] houses,” Wooten continued. “It destroyed all 10 of them. I’ve been in business for 31 years.”
Wooten, like many others, has a farm in Georgia’s Jeff Davis County that he works on to make a living. So, after the storm came through, business couldn’t stop, especially as they tried to make up for what they lost.
“You know, we lost that income, because I’m not building back,” Wooten said. “They’re just so expensive to build . . . [so] I hadn’t built back, but we’ve cleaned up . . . and it took all year to do that.”
“We’re still cleaning up . . . and trying to farm too! Still trying to do a job with my farm,” Wooten added.
Although Wooten decided not to rebuild his poultry houses, other farmers have, and it cost them a large amount of money.
“My son and son-in-law still got theirs; they [have] 8 houses,” Wooten said. “I think it [cost them] 1.3 or 1.4 million dollars’ worth of damage to their houses.”
Outstanding reimbursements
Wooten and his family’s story are similar to others around the state. Also, counties as a whole are still dealing with the effects of the hurricane. According to a report by U.S. Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), as of Sept. 22, counties across Georgia have millions of dollars in outstanding bills for recovery efforts which the federal government is required to reimburse. Toombs County has the largest outstanding bill of over $90 million for reimbursement, with Fulton County as a close second.
The funding that these counties are owed is meant to cover expenses including emergency protective services, debris removal, and rebuilding public infrastructure, according to a release from Sen. Warnock’s office.
Along with being a farmer, Wooten is a county commissioner for Jeff Davis County. Jeff Davis was in the top 10 counties with outstanding Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements.
“It’s been a year later, [and] I mean the county hasn’t gotten all of their funding, of their money,” Wooten explained. “I know this as a commissioner; we haven’t got all our money for the debris pick up.”
“I can’t remember how many million dollars exactly that it [has] cost us to pick this debris up, but I think we’re still about $20 million out,” Wooten added.
“If we expect hardworking Georgians to do their job in the midst of disaster, they should expect us to do ours,” Sen. Warnock said in his report. “The Trump administration said they would support Georgians, instead they’re skipping out on the bill.”
“Georgians have come together to rebuild after Helene,” Warnock continued in a statement. “Now it’s time for the Trump administration to do their job. This can’t wait any longer.”
Sen. Warnock and other politicians representing Georgia have been very vocal about the help that Georgia’s farmers and communities need in the aftermath of Helene. Wooten mentioned that Tyler Harper, Georgia agriculture commissioner, and his staff have played a big part in telling the federal government what the state needs.
When this release and report were issued by Warnock and his team on Sept. 30, it looked like Georgians wouldn’t have to wait that much longer for the much-needed federal aid.
On that same day, the USDA announced that they would provide more than $531 million in Congressionally mandated recovery assistance to Georgia agricultural producers through a block grant agreement with the Georgia Department of Agriculture to help producers recover from Hurricane Helene.
“Farmers and ranchers in Georgia have been hit hard and suffered significant economic losses during 2024,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins said. “Our team has worked closely with the State of Georgia to ensure those impacted have the relief they need in record time.”
“This funding is absolutely essential to help our farm families bounce back from Hurricane Helene, and our team invested hundreds of hours into the negotiation process to secure the maximum possible amount of federal funding for our state and our producers,” Harper added.
While the announcement allowed farmers to breathe a sigh of relief, they are still no closer to getting the money they need. Unlike other states, like South Carolina, the grant agreement for Georgia has not been finalized, and it looks like it won’t be any time soon.
Government shutdown
At the beginning of October, a day after the grant announcement, the government shut down.
“I’ve been fighting for that, trying to get us some money here, trying to get my paperwork ready and now they shut down,” Wooten said. “They opened it up and then shut down the next day.”
It’s been more than two weeks since the government shut down, and there seems to be no end in sight. Georgia is going to have to wait even longer to get its block grants.
According to the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s website: “The Democrat-led shutdown of the federal government is expected to delay implementation of Georgia’s Hurricane Helene Block Grant Program and disbursement of $531,236,000 in block grant funds to Georgia farmers.”
U.S. Rep. Andrew S. Clyde (R-Ga.), representing Georgia’s Ninth District, also joined a letter asking the federal government to reopen and release the Hurricane Helene relief funding.
“As a result of your continued effort to shut down the government, hardworking Georgian farmers and foresters are experiencing real and immediate consequences,” Clyde said in the letter. “From disrupting much-needed economic and disaster relief payments to hindering state block grant negotiations, the shutdown is inflicting severe consequences on Georgian farmers and producers.”
“Additionally, the Farm Service Agency has paused new farm and commodity loans, cutting off a critical lifeline for family farms at a crucial point in the harvest season,” Clyde added.
It’s been more than a year since Hurricane Helene swept through the southeast, and Georgia farmers are no closer to receiving the aid than they were when disaster first struck.
“The government’s got to help us some kind of way. We’ve been doing everything they asked us to do, and it just takes forever to get anything,” Wooten said. “I’m very discouraged [by] the way this government has moved on that.”
