Georgia lawmakers are heading back to the Capitol tomorrow for a Special Session called by Governor Nathan Deal. The session will address the cleanup costs associated with Hurricane Michael. The storm was still a powerful category 3 hurricane when it struck southwest Georgia.
University of Georgia Professor Jeffery Dorfman says the scope of the damage was immense.
“Right now, our estimate of the economic losses from Hurricane Michael, just to Geor gia farmers, is about $2.4 billion,”, according to Dorfman. “That’s cotton, that’s pecans, that’s timber, that’s poultry, that’s vegetable, everything. And then on top of that, we’ve now estimated an additional $360 million in losses to businesses who buy those farm products and process them.”
Dorfman says lawmakers both at the federal level and state level must act within the next six weeks in order to help famers with production loans which are due in January and February.
CUT “Most Georgia farmer have an annual; production loan, which they used to buy their inputs, pay their workers, run their equipment, and they pay it back when they harvest their crop and they and sell it.”
The clock is now ticking for many cash-strapped farmers.
“Those production loans are all going to come due in January and some possibly February; which means we don’t have very long to get them disaster relief payments or to get instructions from the bank regulators to the banks about what sort of extensions they can extend to the farmers without getting into trouble from the regulators from having a bunch of things that look like bad loans in their books.”
State leaders estimate the cost to the state for the cleanup could be as much as $270.
Lawmakers will also support or reject a jet fuel tax break that would benefit Delta and other airlines. Delta would save about $40 million a year.
The special session is expected to last five days.
