Grounded by bad weather, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper visited a flooded poultry farm in livestock-heavy Duplin County on Monday for a first-hand look at recovery from Hurricane Florence. “The driving tour was very impactful,” said Perdue in a USDA audio recording as he described the pervasive odor of rotting crops and the labor of cleaning chicken litter and debris from the barns.
A preliminary estimate by state officials last week said the storm killed 3.4 million poultry and 5,500 hogs. There was no immediate estimate of crop losses. The state Department of Environmental Quality said nine manure lagoons on industrial livestock farms were flooded and 32 lagoons were overflowing as of Sunday night, with 57 additional lagoons in danger of overflowing due to storm water. Five lagoons have structural damage.
Rep. David Rouzer, whose district in eastern North Carolina was hit by the hurricane, said in the days afterward, Duplin County “looked like a lake with a few island interspersed.”
Perdue and Cooper toured Dail Farms, where 12 chicken houses flooded during Hurricane Florence, said WRAL-TV. The barns were empty when the storm arrived. Farm manager Elwood Garner estimated it would take three or four weeks to get back into production.
Cooper said the state will do its part in hurricane recovery. “We’re going to need significant federal help,” said the governor.