Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns (R-Newington) and fellow speakers from other Southeastern states are telling leaders from both chambers of Congress they need more federal assistance — and soon — to rebuild infrastructure and farms devastated so far this hurricane season.
In a letter addressed Monday to Speaker of the U.S. House Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Burns and his peers say recent storms have caused “generational impacts” in their states. The letter was cosigned by the Republican House speakers of Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
After making landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region last month as a Category 4 storm, Hurricane Helene pushed across southeast Georgia, knocking out power to more than 1.7 million people and wreaking havoc on farms across the state. In the Carolinas, the storm’s heavy rains led to historic floods that devastated many mountain communities.
Less than two weeks later, Hurricane Milton’s landfall caused fresh destruction on Florida’s west coast. Before both of those storms there was Hurricane Debby, a slow-moving Category 1 hurricane, which also swamped large parts of the Southeast back in August.
So far, the White House has approved nearly $2 billion in hurricane recovery assistance across all states impacted by Helene. President Biden has also approved disaster declarations for dozens of south and east Georgia counties, stretching from near the Florida border all the way northeast to the Augusta area.
But state leaders says more help is needed, especially for farmers.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Helene, in particular, “could not have made landfall at a worse time for the agriculture industry,” the state house speakers wrote.
“Farmers across our states had already begun Fall harvest and no commodity was spared,” the letter says.
While damage assessments are underway, the state leaders asked for more time to assemble loss data and submit it to Congress. Earlier this month, Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper estimated Hurricane Helene caused direct damages of at least $6.46 billion to Georgia’s agriculture and forestry industries, the state’s largest economic sector.
The speakers also requested that disaster aid be distributed through a federal block grant — similar to what was done after Hurricane Michael slammed South Georgia in 2018.
That storm, which first struck Florida’s Panhandle but maintained hurricane strength deep into Georgia, caused damages that topped $2.5 billion. But back then, it took roughly a year to secure federal aid despite a bipartisan push by Gov. Brian Kemp and the state’s congressional delegation. Aid didn’t trickle down to many farmers until 2020. The lag upset many Georgia lawmakers and sparked a rift between then-President Donald Trump and state Republicans.
This time, Burns and the other cosigners say speed is imperative to help get farmers back on their feet.
“Timely delivery of disaster assistance is extremely important as farmers will be unable to secure financing for planting next year’s crop without this support,” the letter says.
On top of the agriculture aid, the signees say they need supplemental disaster assistance to help communities rebuild, infrastructure funding to repair damaged roads and bridges, as well as a Department of Housing and Urban Development grant to boost housing and economic development opportunities.
The letter follows other efforts to press for more hurricane recovery aid in Georgia.
Earlier this month, Georgia’s Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — along with the rest of the state’s congressional delegation — joined a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers from other states in urging House and Senate leadership to provide more assistance to farmers harmed by storms.
Leaders from both parties have also urged Congress to return from its recess early to vote on a hurricane aid package but so far, federal legislators have not heeded those calls.
Congress is set to reconvene in mid-November.
