Tropical Storm Debby brings widespread damage to Georgia farms
By Jennifer Whittaker
More than a week after Tropical Storm (TS) Debby crawled across Southeast Georgia Aug. 5-6, farmers and rural residents in her path are still evaluating crop damage and dealing with washed-out roads the storm left in her wake.
TS Debby traveled a route very similar to the one Hurricane Idalia took last year crossing the Florida line near Valdosta and moving north through counties including, but not limited to: Thomas, Brooks, Lowndes, Echols, Lanier, Clinch, Berrien, Irwin, Ware, Bacon, Pierce, Appling, Toombs, Evans, Tattnall, Bulloch, Effingham and Screven counties to the South Carolina line and across to the Georgia coast.
Severe soil erosion occurred after torrential rains.
This is an example of what happened in a Georgia peanut field.
Photo by Whitney Sheppard / provided by GA Farm Bureau
Rainfall between 5-10 inches fell from Valdosta to Vidalia to Statesboro and points to the east, Georgia Emergency Management Agency Meteorologist Will Lanxton reported Aug. 6. By the morning of Aug. 7, Lanxton reported that 8 to 12 inches of rainfall had accumulated across South-Central, Southeast, and East-Central Georgia. Parts of Effingham, Screven and Bulloch counties received over a foot of rain from Debby. These rainfall totals align with a 100-year flood recurrence interval, Lanxton reported.
“This week has been tough. Tropical Storm Debby has been a significant issue for Southeast Georgia. Keep our farm families in your prayers,” Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper said Aug. 8 while speaking at the Georgia Farm Bureau Commodity Conference in Tifton. “If you’re in the impacted zone, the most important thing is to document, document, document any damage your crops or farm suffered. We’re hearing reports that Georgia’s tobacco crop has been destroyed for all practical purposes. We’ve heard reports of some peanut and cotton fields having been flooded, which could lead to disease pressure that affect yields on down the line. We had some poultry houses that were flooded, and chickens were lost. We’re working to assess damage and collect data to see where we’re at to work on getting disaster assistance.”
Debby was more of a rain event than a wind event, UGA Weather Network Director & Agricultural Climatologist Pam Knox said.
“The highest gusts in Georgia were in the range of 55-60 mph, mostly in Southeastern Georgia or near the coast,” Knox said. “This means it was not as strong a wind event as Hurricane Michael in 2018, the peak gust in Georgia from that storm was 115 mph. TS Alberto in 1994 had a maximum rain amount of over 27 inches, so we were not very close to that either.”
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