Hurricane Michael has wreaked havoc on agriculture in South Georgia, and nowhere is the damage symbolized more succinctly than on an I-75 service road just outside Ashburn.
Here a 30-foot-tall statue of a monstrously huge legume once stood guard over the interstate traffic, announcing to north- and south-bound vehicles that, in Georgia, the goober is king.
But 100 mph winds from a rare Georgia hurricane have laid the colossus low.
Michael did the same to much of the cotton crop and some of the peanut crop in Turner County, home of the savory statue.
“It just looks like snow down here,” said Nick Denham, chairman of the Turner County Commission.
The cotton plants were open and ready to be picked when the storm blew through, saturating the bolls and knocking them off the stalks.
“We lost about 75 percent of the cotton,” said Denham. It’s going to hurt bad.”
The peanut crop in Turner County wasn’t hurt as bad, he said. “Most of the people had the peanut crop in, though some was still out there. Peanuts are about 80 percent in, which is good.”
Still, the losses are “more zeroes than I’m used to writing,” said Denham.
The statue itself is composed of a vinyl material stretched over a metal frame, seated inside a crown atop a brick-and-mortar tower. The publication Roadside Attractions deemed it the largest peanut statue in the country, outstripping contenders in Alabama, Texas and up the road in Plains.
Turner County Chief Deputy Charles Dean said the Giant Peanut will be brought back to its former regal status, but probably not any time soon.
Though there were no deaths and limited damage to houses in the county, the hurricane still left a mess.
“We still have 400 different roads we have to clear of debris,” said Dean, adding that about 7,000 of the county’s 8,900 residents were without power as of Friday morning. (The city of Ashburn’s power came back on Friday afternoon.)
Said Denham, fixing the peanut is “not on top of the list of needs right now. There’s people that can’t take a bath and can’t chill their groceries.”
But he expects it to happen eventually. The cost, which he estimated at $10,000-to-$20,000, will probably be covered by private donations, he said. “Everybody will pitch in a little bit to help.’
