HURRICANE MICHAEL

MICHAEL POST

By Patrick Dunning

More than a year after Hurricane Michael, the salvage effort yields some results.

Estimates of successful wood salvage on timberland damaged by Hurricane Michael along the Florida Panhandle and southwest Georgia range from 10-16%, according to some authorities; meanwhile many logging outfits scrambled to contribute to the salvage effort, and some suffered because of the market ramifications.

Making landfall on October 10, 2018 near Mexico Beach in Bay County, Fla., the Category 5 hurricane speared the Gulf Coast with 155-160 MPH winds, leaving some communities still draped in blue tarp and desolate.

The Forest Inventory and Analysis Program (FIA), which will include U.S Forest Service assessments in areas affected by the storm, could conclude as early as March, providing a before and after footprint on timber plots.

Initial reports by Florida Forest Service estimated the value of timber damage at $1.3 billion, pillaging more than 2.8 million acres of forestland either catastrophically (347,000 acres), severely (1.04 million acres) or moderately (1.4 million acres). More specifically, FFS said the storm impacted 500 million trees, 16,000 private landowners and 233 communities (about 4.4 years of annual forest harvest in Florida).

The three counties most affected by the storm in the Panhandle were Bay, Calhoun and Gulf, but Gadsden, Jackson, Liberty, Franklin, Holmes, Leon, The enormous salvage task is on the downward slope.

Wakulla and Washington counties also received damage.

Agriculture Commissioner Nicole (Nikki) Fried recently announced that the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture allocated $380.7 million in federal block grant funding for Florida farmers devastated by Hurricane Michael, including direct relief for timber producers. The Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services will administer the USDA block grants alongside the Florida Div. of Emergency Management.

FFS said more than 1.6 million acres of pine was damaged, along with 697,000 acres of mixed upland stands, and 503,000 acres of bottomland.

Georgia Forestry Commission estimated nearly 2.4 million acres of forestland impacted and approximately 38 million tons of timber valued at $763 million damaged by the storm, including 20.5 million tons of pine and 17.2 million tons of hardwood.

Scott Griffin, Forest Management Chief of GFC, says the salvage effort concluded in spring 2019 for the most part. “A lot of the wood deteriorated after a while,” he says. “What we’re seeing now is internal damage. Combine dry season with pine bark beetles attacking stressed trees and you get unviable stands.” Griffin, who helped lead the charge following the storm, says high volumes of wood on the ground limited the markets. Moving forward, GFC will continue to manage standing timber in moderately damaged areas.

Catastrophic damage was documented for 79,456 acres of forestland from south of Albany to Lake Seminole, representing a loss of 2.2 million tons of pine and 1.8 million tons of hardwood valued at $80.5 million. Severe damage was documented for 296,112 acres of forestland from south Albany to near Bainbridge. Damages total an estimated loss of 6.4 million tons of pine and 5.3 million tons of hardwood.

Those affected the worst in Georgia include Seminole, Miller, Baker, Dougherty, Lee and Crisp counties, while Decatur, Mitchell, Worth, Early, Calhoun, Sumter and other counties ex

perienced damages.

David Dickens, PH.D., Forest Productivity professor at the University of Georgia, anticipates a final salvage rate of 16% with percentages fluctuating in Alabama and Florida. “We were hoping to get 25% recovered in stands but there weren’t enough trees,” he says. Dickens was on the forefront of the salvage effort after Hurricane Hugo in 1989, where he says 60% of wood was recovered.

Charles Ives, a logging operator based in Quitman, Ga., says as terrible as Michael was, it had a positive spin. “It had gotten so wet there was nowhere left for us to work,” he says. “It gave us something to do because we didn’t have anywhere else to go.” There was initial hesitation to travel to the west side of the state to Baker County but continual rain following the storm forced their hand so they took a track loader and track cut-down machine to the devastation zone, which gave them a slight advantage. “A lot of us waited and didn’t go at the very start,” Ives says. “We kept saying we weren’t going to get involved over there but we ended up going. Markets were low on inventory due to wet conditions which resulted in getting paid higher rates for storm wood.” He believes a lot of the salvage effort has since resided due to blue stain. Tract conditions weren’t easy on his equipment either. “The ground was really bad and picking up stray limbs was like sifting through pixy sticks,” Ives recalls.

Sitting just outside the path where peak wind gusts occurred, Ricky Anderson, owner of Anderson Logging Inc., in Temple, Ga., says he still feels some discomfort. In his efforts to help clean damaged areas southbound, Anderson says the accessible timber is still a burden. “The mills don’t like twisted wood, you have to do a lot of saw work and it’s aggravating,” he says. “And it’s only good for so long.”

Logging foreman Jacob Paschal, Albany, Ga., says their chipping operation hasn’t taken a lot of days off since the storm hit. “We had a lot of storm wood we were on, the problem was, there was nowhere to deliver the wood,” he says. “West Georgia got hit hard and we had ample opportunity to go over there and chip all day but there’s not a lot of opportunities to sell it.”

Keith Dunson, procurement contractor Hurricane Michael is the strongest storm to hit the Florida Panhandle.

for Havana Logging Co., Havana, Fla., says looking at what the storm did just a few hours after was devastating. His core timber buying area sits in the four-county area that suffered the most destruction. It took about one month to get situated because most of their loggers’ homes were damaged. “Our guys had to get their lives in order before they could help other people,” Dunson says. “A lot of them didn’t have a place to lay their head, we’d let them use our equipment to get limbs off their houses and patch roofs.” They then dispatched five crews outside the catastrophic zone, and four inside. “We had help all around, had some track and swamp crews helping in the wet areas and we just cut what standing wood was available.”

One problem Dunson sees moving forward is the well-being of private landowners. “There’s very little revenue available to the landowner because they took a beating on stumpage,” he says. “Finding new stumpage in the future will be tough, we’re going to have to pan out further.”

Troy Walden, owner of Walden Timber Harvesting Inc., Altha, Fla., had gotten out of the business shortly before the storm hit, but was enticed by the opportunity to recover storm wood. It didn’t work out as he had hoped. “All the timber that blew over, there was about 30 million worth of timber damage in my area,” Walden says. “I just didn’t see how I could make a living anymore.” The storm wood market was good shortterm, Walden says, but believes all the salvage timber that can be utilized, has already been. “I hate to say it but all the wood that’s left is rotted. They’re doing all they can but this damaged timber is going to hurt the industry down the road.” Walden notes a small patch of relief is Apalachicola National Forest selling tracts. But even then, he says that won’t last long.

Located in Perry, Fla., Jamie Boland, owner of Boland Timber Co., says they were east enough not to receive any damage. The issue his crews experienced were in lending a helping hand. “We figured out really quick we couldn’t help like we wanted to,” he says. After sending a crew to Calhoun County, finding places to stay and gas stations were hard to come by. The market in the devastation area was bad, and Boland says he’s felt some of those strains bleeding over in the last six months; especially since some of the salvage efforts reverted to pushing slash wood aside and getting strictly leaning wood.

Dewayne Sheppard, a used equipment dealer and logging operator based in Havana, Fla., also suffered losses because of the storm’s impact. With production down 30%, his attempt to capitalize on storm wood was temporary. “The mills offered us more money but it didn’t add up in the long run,” he says. ➤ 44

Landowner assistance programs are becoming available.

Wewahitchka, Fla. was one of the hardest hit by the storm, sitting in Gulf County. Ted Whitfield, timber dealer of Whitfield Timber Co., says there’s a high percentage of long-term damage surrounding the region. “It overwhelmed the community,” Whitfield says. Currently working through a 25% loss in production, Whitfield is just trying to recover what he can. Of the landowners Whitfield knows, he says no one has received any financial compensation yet. He is hopeful it could come as soon as Quarter 1, 2020.

The Farm Service Agency has a costshare program called the Emergency Forest Restoration Program, administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to assist private landowners in restoring land damaged by Hurricane Michael. Cost-share payments cover up to 75% of approved restoration practices and limited to $500,000 per person or legal entity.

The application process for timber producers to receive grant funding is being finalized.

Through consistent engagement with USDA officials, Florida secured nearly half of the $800 million in federal block grant funding announced for Florida, Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina disaster relief programs. The funds will compensate timber producers for lost value of their crop damaged by Hurricane Michael, helping them clear downed trees and replant. Block grant funding will also help producers repair and replace irrigation infrastructure damage from Hurricane Michael.

“This funding is a huge victory for Florida’s timber producers, whose resilience in the year following Hurricane Michael has been extraordinary,” Fried says. “Our priority will be moving this funding forward so that timber producers can have checks in hand and trees in the ground. Thank you to the USDA and Secretary Perdue for helping us put Florida’s farmers first.”

Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed into law the Forest Debris Management Program, an emergency disaster relief initiative assisting cleanup efforts and funding to those impacted in the 28- county area. As of December 1, 2019, approximately 35% or 60,000 acres have been certified for clean-up by GFC.

“We appreciate the efforts of forest landowners who have been dealing with the challenges of storm fallout and cleanup,” Georgia Forestry Commission Director Chuck Williams says. “One of our main goals, to keep forests as forests, remains a top priority.” TP 43 ➤