There will be a lot of stories about Hurricane Michael being published in the next few weeks. Here are a few of interest that I saw this morning. Don’t miss the story at the end!

Washington Post: Historic and horrendous Hurricane Michael by the numbers

CIMMS blog: Power Outages in the Wake of Hurricane Michael

Growing Produce: Southeast Farmers Picking Up After Hurricane Michael Pours Down

Iowa Agribusiness: Alabama farmers talk about Hurricane Matthew aftermath (audio)

Livescience: Hurricane Michael is Officially More Powerful than Hurricane Katrina

Orlando Weekly: Florida’s agriculture devastated by Hurricane Michael

Feedstuffs: Georgia, Florida ag living nightmare after Hurricane Michael

The Weather Network: Rescuers fear more dead in wake of Hurricane Michael

And finally, this comment from NWS meteorologist Steve Nelson on his Facebook page about the damage survey he did today:

“Long day surveying damage with Ryan Willis and Emergency Managers across middle and southwest Georgia today. Didn’t see any clear evidence of damage from a tornado. Instead, we found a continuous, 25-mile wide swath of EF-1 intensity destruction from Cordele all the way to the southwest corner of the state.

The further we traveled southwest along the path, the more we had to process what we were seeing. Nearly every home in southwest Georgia had trees blown down and/or some sort of roof damage. No stoplights were working. Gas stations had long lines. Many state highways and roads remained blocked by trees that had not been cleared 40 hours after the storm passed. We stopped at an old church east of Colquitt founded in 1835 that had its porch ripped off. Three families of older adults had parked there to hand pump water out of the old well because there was no water at their houses.

The survey ended at the Donalsonville Airport where the UGA AEMN mesonet measured a 115 mph gust before its comms failed. Four aircraft were flipped upside down. One cropduster with its 500-gallon hopper filled with water prior to the storm to keep its weight up, was ripped from its anchor and “flew” 100 yards up and over the company’s facility and into a power pole and landed right-side up near the highway. The co-owner of the cropdusting company told me she and her family took shelter that afternoon in an apartment and at the height of the storm, part of their roof collapsed and had to keep the door to their room shut to keep out the wind and rain.

The bright side within all this destruction was that relatively few injuries or deaths were being talked about. I’ve seen a lot of incredible tornado damage over the last 25 years but won’t ever forget what I saw today. Have no desire to cross the state line to see what the damage looked like in Florida.”

Source: Andrea Gibbs, Hyde County Extension Agent via Southeast Farm Press.

 

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