As traditional floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Helene recede across the , U. S.  , Southeast, the place faces a philanthropic, economical and ecological problems of remarkable scope, with effects plausible to previous years.
Cotton vegetables that are about to reach produce have been flattened. Professional chemicals and sludge have accumulated in swelled rivers. Essential pieces of the electricity grid have been destroyed. Poultry flocks in some of the country’s largest poultry-producing claims have drowned. High-quality glass for computer bits is still produced at the same level.
And the death toll in people’s life keeps rising, with more than 150 confirmed fatalities in six states and many others displaced. The federal government reported 29 homes available, with more than 1, 000 tenants.
The area has previously experienced catastrophic hurricane. But the blow of Helene’s injury — much of it occurring way from shore, in hill towns and inland areas — took many by surprise. The grain costs alone may trigger$ 7 billion in insurance payments, a , U. S. Department of Agriculture , national estimated Tuesday.
” The future of lots of agricultural activities across , Georgia , is uncertain”, the country’s Agriculture Commissioner , Tyler Harper , said in a text to its Congressional group. The wind” could not have come at a worse day for our farmers and producers, who are already faced with record-setting drops in gross farm income caused by inflation, higher input costs, labor shortages, international competition and reduced commodity prices”.
As climate change roils wind patterns around the world, extremely warm sea temperatures are unleashing strong, dangerous storms. Helene came after Beryl and Debby’s hurricane earlier this year destroyed everything.
Helene crashed offshore later Thursday in , Florida , with 140 mile-per-hour breezes before plowing a course north into the , Appalachian Mountains. Even before it reached sea, the storm’s moisture soaked the area, saturating the planet and setting up some states for flooding.
Every local product business was impacted, with cotton, almonds, chicken and forest the hardest hit, according to , Matthew Agvent, communications director for the , Georgia Department of Agriculture. The state anticipates Helene to be more expensive than Hurricane Michael, which caused$ 2.5 billion in agricultural damage, while it’s still in the evaluation stage.
Between 400, 000 to 800, 000 cotton bales may be lost due to the hurricane, though it will take at least four to six weeks to get more clarity, said , Peter Egli, an independent consultant to the industry. That would represent as much as 5.5 % of total , U. S.  , production for this season, according to a calculation based on , U. S. Department of Agriculture , data.
Some 107 poultry facilities had been “damaged or totally destroyed by the storm” , , Georgia , Governor , Brian Kemp , said in a press conference Saturday.
Helene also halted , North Carolina , mining operations producing high-purity quartz used to make silicon wafers for semiconductor manufacturing.  , Operators Sibelco and Quartz Corp.  , shut their facilities on , Sept. 26, the companies said in separate statements, without suggesting a date to restart.
A broken grid
Regions continue to struggle to reroute roads and reconnect power. More than 4 million homes and businesses lost power as a result of the storm, which at its peak, but progress in the hard-hit mountains and foothills has been painfully slow.  , Georgia Power, a unit of , Southern Co., called Helene the most destructive hurricane in the company’s history, damaging 1, 200 of its transformers — devices that convert the high-voltage power flowing across transmission lines into the lower voltage used in homes.  , Duke Energy Corp., which operates in the Carolinas, has n’t released specific numbers but said some of its electric substations were completely flooded. On Tuesday afternoon, about 1.4 million customers were without power across the three states.
According to an April report from energy consultancy , Wood Mackenzie, the waiting period for new transformers has increased over the past two years, with the large ones used in electric substations lasting from 1.5 to four years. Transformer prices have also risen 60 % to 80 % since 2020. But , Scott Aaronson, senior vice president of security and preparedness at the , Edison Electric Institute , trade group, said the region’s utilities keep spare transformers in reserve in advance of hurricane season and have agreements to supply each other as needed.
Even as they race to reconnect communities and house the displaced, states are tallying up Helen’s environmental damage. Inundated waste water systems released millions of gallons of sewage, while a , Florida , phosphate plant on the banks of , Tampa Bay , released hundreds of pounds of ammonia. Hundreds of spills have been reported to state environmental officials from , Florida , to , North Carolina , in the wake of the storm, which dumped more than a foot of rain over industrial areas, paper mills and factories.
Sewage and chemicals taint rivers
” We are seeing just catastrophic flooding”, said , Gray Jernigan, general counsel for environmental group MountainTrue, who watched the devastation firsthand as the , French Broad River , in , Asheville, North Carolina, spilled its banks, flooding the city ‘s , River Arts District. ” We are seeing chemicals, gas and oil spill and fuel tanks flowing into the river. Industrial sites are spouting into the river.
The site of a coal-fired power plant and retired nuclear plant owned by Duke was also swamped with floodwaters after experiencing storm surge of as much as 12 feet, the company reported in a , Sept. 27 , filing with the , Florida Department of Environmental Protection. According to the report, an overflowing wastewater pond at the facility was “observed overflowing to the ground as a result of the surge.” The city of , Tampa, meanwhile, released 8.5 million gallons of sewage alone after storm surges overwhelmed the system, said , Kathlyn Fitzpatrick, a spokeswoman for the city.
” Most of it went into the bay”, Fitzpatrick said. There is nothing we can really do to change that.
Flooding has started to stop in the area. As of Tuesday afternoon, the , French Broad River , in , Asheville , was no longer at flood stage. The city’s top water level reached 24.67 feet, which was an additional 18 inches over the previous record set in 1916.
” Unfortunately, this one is going to be the new big one”, said , Clay Chaney, a meteorologist for the , National Weather Service , in , Greer, South Carolina.
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