The value of a good tree goes far beyond its life-sustaining qualities, which are numerous for all living creatures, including us. Georgia’s tree farmers can attest to this fact.
Those folks took emotional and financial whippings estimated at $300 million as Hurricane Michael came ashore in the Florida Panhandle and moved inward through the Georgia forest, home of some of this nation’s largest and most prodigious stands of pines and hardwoods.
I have heard it estimated that the Panhandle-South Georgia region lost upwards of 1 million trees during the Oct. 10 storm. It is my own estimation that half of them were in Early County, Ga., where we live part-time near the county seat of Blakely. It just seems that way.
Almost a month later, Blakely looks like the proverbial battleground of war, with trees still resting on some rooftops and hundreds of massive trunks and limbs scattered across town.
I was living in the Jackson area when Katrina hit the Mississippi Coast and inland territories on Aug. 29, 2005. I remember that Flowood, 150 miles inland, registered winds at 100 miles per hour.
In the Georgia countryside, I believe Michael’s winds matched that velocity. I never thought it could happen there. Most residents of the area could not recall the last such storm that hit this close to home.
In Sunday School, our teacher talked of having a “servant heart.” I have seen hundreds of disaster relief workers descend on Southwest Georgia to spread just that — relief. These people from across America — and the utility linemen locally and from afar — definitely have a “servant heart.” We can’t say “thank you” enough times.
Our row crop farmers, who suffered economic losses estimated by the experts at $600 million for cotton and peanuts alone, had what appeared to be a record harvest in the field on the day Michael roared ashore.
There is a cotton farmer near us who probably thought he had defied the odds that exist when you depend solely on rainfall to nourish a crop.
Most farmers these days use expensive irrigation systems to help their plantings along. This particular fellow’s crop looked better than I had ever seen it because he had enjoyed timely rains all season, and then Michael slammed it down. The odds got him again.
All told, Georgia’s agricultural producers suffered losses on the early estimates at around $2 billion. There is not much agriculture as you go northward toward Atlanta, so most of the damages occurred in what is known as “the other Georgia” of field and forest. These areas depend on agriculture for the majority portion of their economies.
Back to these good trees. They all have financial, aesthetical, medical (they help keep us alive) and sentimental values. A few weeks before Michael, another storm brought down a red oak tree on our property estimated to be 150 years old.
The man whose crew worked to clear the debris said he knew of only one other red oak in the region of similar size. He estimates that other tree to be almost 200 years old. He said he doubted its trunk had a circumference to match ours, so this was a special tree, to be sure.
My wife Mary Lee’s maternal grandfather purchased the land almost 100 years ago that held our tree. He and other family members nurtured it on what they consider sacred ground.
We were luckier than many friends and neighbors who saw their grand oaks and majestic pines tumbled by Michael. That tree landed on our driveway. God blessed us.
Mac Gordon is a native and part-time resident of McComb. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
