Source: Drew C. Wilson, WILSON TIMES, 10/4/18


Hurricane Florence has destroyed an estimated 100 million to 150 million pounds of the year’s tobacco crop. “Devastating is a good word to use for it,” said Kenneth Kelly, owner of Horizon Ltd., a tobacco warehouse in Wilson that receives tobacco from growers all over eastern North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina. “All of the rain and all of the wind just literally beat the crop to death in the field,” said Rick Smith of Wilson-based Independent Leaf Tobacco Co.

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