I was raised here on the farm since birth, so I have seen storms rage through the farm throughout my entire life. We have had torrential rainfall and horrific wind damage in the past and honestly, I thought I had seen just about as bad as bad could get. Boy was I wrong.
Before the storm came, we watched the path and thankfully decided to go ahead and finish harvesting our sorghum. We have dealt with hurricanes before with constant 40 to 50 mph winds, which over time can do substantial damage. We thought we were somewhat prepared. Most of our milking and dry cows and calves are housed in barns. Growing heifers are out on pasture, and the very young calves (1 to 3 weeks old) are housed outside in hutches. We milk with robots so there isn’t any need for actual people to be on the farm to perform the action of milking cows.
Helene was such a large hurricane that we were starting to see some of the effects early Thursday morning. We had four and a half inches of rain by 9 a.m., and around 14 inches of rain total. Winds began to blow at speeds of around 6 to 10 mph early that morning. As the day went on, the wind and rain picked up. By the time everyone was getting off work, people were already starting to see some flood damage. Still, at this point, we honestly had thought that the rainfall would be substantial but that would probably be the worst effects that we would see.
Night fell and winds picked up. People around our area started to tune in to networks to try and figure out the path of the storm because things were getting worse and worse. By 1 a.m. rainfall had only become stronger, and the winds had picked up substantially. We figured around that time we were experiencing the “worst of it” with 40 to 50 mph gusts. AGAIN, boy was I wrong. I looked at the radar and saw that Helene had decided to shift east and the eye of the Hurricane was headed directly toward us, about an hour or so out. Sleep was no longer in the forecast. Around 3:30 a.m. the power was out, and I started to hear trees falling and transformers blowing left and right. You could look out the window and all you could see was flashing light and loud booms going off, but without any lightning. At this time families were starting to crowd in the middle of their houses or rooms without windows. You could hear a constant roar like a low sounding far off train. So of course, everyone thought it was possibly a tornado. But the sound wouldn’t go away. Time wore on, and now it was about 5:30 a.m. This, my friends, was the worst of it. The trees falling were constant and the windows were rattling. Outside sounded like a war zone. I had never in my life heard anything like this. Everyone was hunkering down and praying for their safety and daylight.
Once daylight started to present itself, I made my way outside and looked around. What I saw was even worse than what I had heard that had sounded like a war zone. Around that same time cellphone service was completely down. That was probably one of the worst feelings — not being able to check on loved ones to make sure they were okay. Not only because you couldn’t call, but also because trees were scattered across roads just about every 10 to 20 feet. Thankfully I live about a quarter mile from the farm, so I immediately started walking that direction. You could see parts of the woods to the left and right of me — gone. I had to climb over tree after tree and about halfway there, I saw one of our employees that lives on the farm driving the articulating loader already making his way down the road moving trees out of the way. Once he got to me, I climbed into the bucket and hitched a ride to the dairy. He looked at me and said Caitlin, its bad. My gut turned and I asked how bad. He just shook his head and said bad. He dropped me off in the driveway and I immediately checked the robots to make sure all were still running. They are hooked up to back up batteries that are attached to a generator so if the power ever goes out, the generator automatically kicks on. All cows and robots were okay in the freestall barn. My next check was the calves. I went to the calf barn and although some of the roof had been destroyed, the calves were okay. Next, I made my way down to the calves in hutches. I had a gut wrenching feeling that it wasn’t going to be a pretty sight. I looked down that direction and there were no longer any hutches visible. We had found calf hutches strewn two fields away. Luckily, we had only a handful of calves in hutches. Even though the hutches were blown far away, the calves were all found safe and not far from where the hutches originally were. I couldn’t believe it. Every single calf was fine.
The roof had blown off the commodity barn and the sides of the barn were torn apart. The feed was soaked. Our equipment sheds had substantial damage, and the farm fencing looked to be a nightmare itself. The staff that lived close and were able to get to work quickly started to move animals inside. They moved to fields where they were able to patch the fences well enough to hold cows for a few days. We had strangers checking on us, asking if there were anything they could do all while their own homes and property had taken tremendous hits. Our small community went to work. Everyone was outside sawing and moving trees off the road. No one knew the extent of the disaster that Helene had left behind outside of our small town because there were no ways of communication. No phones, internet, or power. It would take hours to get a couple miles cleaned up to get from one small town to the next. At that point cars were having to go off the roads into ditches and back on roads to even get down the road.
We were without power for a little over a week. This was much better than most of our community. There are some people now, one month later, that are still without power. Phone and internet service is still in and out at times. It took a few days for everyone around here to figure out that the aftermath of this storm path did irreputable damage throughout the southeastern United States. We were absolutely blessed compared to the damage in North Carolina and Tennessee. Never could I have imagined something taking place in my lifetime like this. It will truly wake you up.
The aftereffects of Helene will make your heart ache. But I will say, to see the community come together and the love poured out from neighbor helping neighbor will truly warm your heart. We are slowly getting ourselves back to normal but with a heavy heart for the people of Tennessee and North Carolina. We are very blessed for our animals and staff to have stayed safe through Helene!
Mark and Caitlin Rodgers are dairy farmers in Dearing, Georgia. The Rodgers have a 400-cow dairy that averages 32,000 pounds of milk. Follow their family farm on Facebook at Hillcrest Farms Inc.