RUSKIN, Fla. – J.C. Tort took no chances with Hurricanes Charley, Frances and Ivan.
Before each storm, he spent days carefully nestling 70,000 trees into the ground so the wind wouldn't devastate his business, Sun City Tree Farm, in Ruskin. Each time, the 150 acres of trees survived fairly unscathed.
Then came Hurricane Jeanne. Tort and his workers were exhausted. The storm was forecast to remain in the Atlantic. They let their guard down, Tort admits, and it cost them.
"That's when all the trees came down," he said.
Entire rows were wiped out. Support cables ground half-inch-deep notches into hundreds of live oaks, slashing their value. Tort could lose as much as $1 million.
He is not alone. Nearly two months after Hurricane Jeanne, estimates on storm-related farm damage in Hillsborough County keep rolling in – and the figures are much higher than originally thought.
Stephen Gran, the county's agriculture industry development manager, said that when growers tally up ruined crops, building and equipment damage, and a massive sales dropoff during and after the hurricanes, countywide losses could reach $83 million to $100 million.
"Easily," Gran said. "Once all the factors are brought into it, like the loss of production for this year or subsequent years because of the hurricanes, it'll be significantly higher. It could end up being double that in the long term."
That's a severe blow to the county's largest industry, which racked up sales of $654 million last year.
"We still have some growers that are struggling," said Hugh Grambling, president of the 70-member Tampa Bay Wholesale Growers Association. "We're going to be a while before we see the full extent of the damage."
Nursery owners and tree and ornamental growers – Hillsborough's second largest source of agricultural revenue, with $178 million in sales in 2003 – sustained losses of up to $52.5 million, including $2.5 million in structural damage.
Strawberry farmers, the county's top agriculture producers, had to delay their planting cycle by about a month. When Jeanne hit, they lost up to 6,000 acres of plastic mulch and equipment, said Chip Hinton, president of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association. County damage estimates run as high as $15.6 million.
Tomato farmers have been hit even harder. Statewide, shipments are down more than 60 percent; farmers in West Central Florida are among those feeling the biggest crunch.
"We may eventually pick a few tomatoes in Palmetto and Ruskin in December, but normally we would have picked them in November," said Reggie Brown, president of the Florida Tomato Committee. "We're just hoping we don't catch a freeze."
How did this happen in Hillsborough County, which sustained no direct hurricane hits?
"If you don't get hit, then you don't think much about it," said Sandra Nave, who lost a pair of 15,000-square-foot poultry barns at her egg farm on Turkey Creek Road. "But if you do get hit, then you do see the results of how strong those winds are."
Take a number
On Oct. 20, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency began taking applications for federal disaster relief to nurseries and fruit and vegetable farmers in hurricane-racked counties, including Hillsborough. The government has earmarked more than $3-billion for agricultural disaster relief; Florida farmers will receive as much as two-thirds of that.
Don Royster, the Farm Service Agency's executive director for Hillsborough, Polk and Pinellas counties, has met with about 300 Hillsborough farmers at his office in Plant City. Department of Agriculture employees from other states have been called in to help process relief applications.
"We're booked up with appointments all the way until the middle of January," Royster said. "The '89 freezes were one of the busiest times of all, but this is about on the same level."
Grants are capped at $80,000 to replenish crop losses, as well as $250 per acre for debris removal.
Tort may have lost $1 million, but he likely will receive just a five-figure aid package from the government, which pays 25 cents on the dollar for lost inventory.
"I know we're going to get some help," he said. "I don't know how much."
The relief will ease the sting growers felt between August and October, when the market for new landscape ornamentals came to a screeching halt. The pinch was especially tight in Hillsborough County, where nurseries generated sales of more than $50,000 per acre in 2003 – nearly twice that of strawberry farms.
"There were 60 days there where we had virtually no sales in the nursery industry," Grambling said. "The chain stores didn't stock and the landscape contractors didn't want to put new trees in the ground and have them blown over."
When it comes to lost infrastructure, from collapsed greenhouses to shredded plastic tarpaulins, some farmers have been left high and dry. Government relief helps with crop losses and cleanup costs, not building damage.
Many farmers are turning to insurance companies. Judi Whitson, executive director of the county Florida Farm Bureau Federation, said her office has processed 200 to 300 damage claims since the storms.
For those with smaller or older buildings, insurance is cost prohibitive.
"Your premiums are going to make up such a high percentage of what your actual claim would be that it doesn't make sense from a dollar standpoint," said Alan Bunch, whose Exotic Plumeria nursery in Seffner lost about $45,000 in plants and buildings. He has applied for a low-interest government loan to help rebuild.
Some just fold
Some businesses will not recover. Sandra Nave's flattened barns were not insured; to clear and rebuild them would cost up to $1-million. The farm produced about 30,000 eggs a day before the storms, but Nave and her husband, John, may now bulldoze the land and build a small apartment complex.
"We'll never get this cleaned up and back in shape," Sandra Nave said. "We've closed the business up now, because it caught us in such a way that there's no way to get it repaired and back together again in such a short time."
For the most part, though, officials think farmers' bad fortunes will turn in the next few months.
Strawberry growers are still about a week behind schedule to make the most of their winter market window, Hinton said, but they've been aided by excellent weather since the hurricanes and could catch up by early 2005.
Likewise, ornamental growers think the landscaping industry will recover before long.