Hot off the presses is a new set of guides for hurricane preparation and recovery from the USDA Southeast Regional Climate Hub. If you are a commercial producer in the Southeast, you are going to want to take a look at these guides to see how you can plan ahead for hurricanes and tropical storms (you know they are coming some day!) and how you can recover once they hit. There are separate chapters for anything you grow commercially, from beef to watermelons.

Although the guides are pretty comprehensive, they are missing some crops which are economically important to the Southeast like pecans and blueberries. If you would like to see a chapter added on these crops, let me know and we can work on getting one into the next edition. I know they are working on more guides, so your specialty might be next.

The direct link to the Georgia handbook is at https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/hurricane-preparedness-and-recovery-guides-georgia-producers. If you are in a different state in the Southeast, you can find links to all the guides at https://www.climatehubs.usda.gov/hubs/hurricane-preparedness-and-recovery-guides-georgia-producers.

Please note that this is a work in progress. If you think something is murky, wrong, or missing, please contact them to let them know. Or you can send your comments to me and I will forward them on, anonymously if you wish. Once they get comments in, they will update and revise. Hard copies should be available in 2021.