GFB News Magazine
Farmers still recovering from Hurricane Helene
by Jay Stone
News Writer
Posted on September 6, 2025 1:54 PM
A late June ride through parts of Georgia ravaged by Hurricane Helene Sept. 27, 2024, revealed beautiful row crop fields interspersed with bent and twisted timber, along with mangled homes and farm structures.
“It’s the darndest thing I’ve ever seen,” said Coffee County farmer Jerry McKinnon.
Recovery is far from complete. Some farm structures have been repaired or replaced; others haven’t.
Some damaged or fallen timber stands have been cleared. Others are in the process of being cleared, with piles of forest debris dotting dirt fields, waiting to be burned. It was common to see 20-foot-high piles of tree stumps across the road from pristine corn fields.
Coffee County Extension Agent Ashley Smith said many farms in the county resumed growing row crops this year, but livestock and timber producers are still putting their operations back together.
“The row crop, blueberry and citrus guys are close to normal operations,” Smith said. “Livestock guys are still fixing fencing and rebuilding herds from having to sell animals after the storm.”
McKinnon lost all his 2024 cotton crop and a significant part of his peanut crop. He lost a few cattle but had to sell about 500 brood cows – more than half his herd - because downed fences and limited access to feed and water prevented normal care and containment. McKinnon said he lost several miles of fencing.
“We’ve salvaged what we could, and we’ve moved forward,” McKinnon said. “The cattle … it’ll be years before we’ll build all those cattle back.”
Helene was the largest weather catastrophe in state history, according to statements from Gov. Brian Kemp. Georgia’s agriculture sector was hit hard. A University of Georgia storm damage report shows Helene did $5.5 billion worth of damage to agriculture and timber.
In Jeff Davis County, James Emory Tate and son Jamie Tate have repaired the sheet-metal roofs, siding and ventilation fans that Helene damaged on their poultry houses. Jamie estimated about 1,500 feet of metal roofing had to be replaced. One house caved in.
“That was a big cost,” Jamie said in June. The poultry house that caved in was out of use for six months. “The hardest part was getting equipment. We just finished installing some fans.”
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Jeff Davis County farmer Kim Williams was having these grain bins repaired in June. The collapsed bin was empty when Helene hit last year. The one next to it was full of grain and escaped unscathed. A grain elevator at the site fell on a bin behind these, leaving a large dent in the roof. / Photo by Jay Stone
Jeff Davis farmer Kim Williams had a group of four grain bins – each with a capacity of at least 50,000 bushels – ravaged by Helene’s winds. Two of them, full of grain, survived. A third had a grain elevator fall on top of it, leaving a trough-shaped dent in the metal. The fourth, which was empty, imploded on one side.
Williams, who grows row crops and blueberries, had six irrigation pivots that had to be repaired. By mid-June, Williams said restoration of his farm assets other than the grain bins was essentially done.
“We just had a lot of additional expense of dealing with the hurricane because of cleanup and repairs, but it’s been really hectic,” Williams said. “It’s an experience that you sure don’t want to go through again.”
The biggest roadblocks to recovery, Williams said, were money and the availability of people to do the work.
“The biggest limiting factor that we had was, there were so many pivots damaged in this area, you have to wait in line to get yours repaired,” he said. “Then, the people who do this type of work [the grain bins], they were working on metal buildings and different things before they got to us.”
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Chicken house debris Hurricane Helene left behind at Vann Wooten’s Jeff Davis County farm. Wooten, who does not plan to rebuild, paused cleanup to focus on his row crops and cattle. / Photo by Jay Stone
Making tough decisions
Farmers in Helene’s path faced numerous decisions in the storm’s aftermath.
In Jeff Davis County, Van Wooten lost all 10 of his poultry houses and 50 acres of timber.
After decades growing broiler chickens, Wooten says he doesn’t plan to build new poultry houses and will only produce row crops and cattle.
Back in Coffee County, Logan Merritt lost seven chicken houses. He decided not to rebuild them because of the cost and debt associated with rebuilding.
That decision, too, comes with a cost. One of the things that appeals to farmers about raising chickens is it provides a predictable cash flow. In deciding to get out of poultry, Merritt has decided to forego that revenue moving forward.
For his part, Merritt, who rode out Helene in his truck and watched his poultry houses be demolished, is counting himself blessed.
“I don’t understand things. I know that the Lord, he’s the one that controls it all, and I guess all I can do now is try again,” Merritt said.
He is still growing row crops and cattle.
Burning piles of timber knocked down by Hurricane Helene in Coffee County. Similar sights could be seen across the county into August as storm cleanup continued. / Photo by Jay Stone
There has been some help
Money, as farmers know, is a big hurdle. Many farmers who saw a lifetime of work destroyed in a few hours, can’t move forward without major assistance.
Georgia Farm Bureau Insurance handled 5,892 farm-related claims for $202 million. The Weathered, But Strong campaign, spearheaded by the Georgia Department of Agriculture and GFB’s Georgia Foundation for Agriculture with support from 40 Georgia ag organizations, raised $1.77 million, which was distributed to 920 farms affected by the storm.
Georgia General Assembly passed a series of loan, grant and tax-credit programs to help farmers and timber owners and buy time for federal resources to arrive.
Congress passed the American Relief Act of 2025 last December that included $21 billion in disaster aid for natural disasters that occurred nationwide in 2023 and 2024. The USDA began issuing $16 billion in assistance through the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) in July for farmers with crop insurance, under which Georgia farmers had received $100.4 million as of Sept. 7, according to the USDA. At press time, the USDA expected to begin SDRP payment signup for farmers without crop insurance the week of Sept. 15. Sept. 8 is the target date USDA set to begin signup for the Emergency Livestock Relief Program for Flooding payments. At press time, the USDA and Georgia Department of Agriculture were working out details of a block grant agreement that will provide additional funds to farmers that do not duplicate funds provided by other USDA programs.