Source: NCDA&CS, 1/22/20

WHO/WHAT: Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler will recognize a large team of 160 employees that managed sending out disaster relief checks to farmers following Hurricane Florence in 2018. The relief amount totaled $240 million, and the program wrapped up last week.

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, Jan. 23 @ 10 a.m.
N.C. Museum of History, 5 E. Edenton St., Raleigh, NC 27601 (entrance on Bicentennial Mall)

ADDITIONAL
INFORMATION: When Hurricane Florence hit North Carolina in September 2018, followed by Tropical Storm Michael in October, they left the state’s agriculture industry with $1.2 billion in damages and loss. Commissioner Troxler worked with lawmakers, and on October 16, 2018, Session Law 2018-136 Senate Bill 3, AN ACT TO ENACT THE 2018 HURRICANE FLORENCE DISASTER RECOVERY ACT, was approved. This law appropriated $240 million, and it instructed the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to aid producers for agricultural loss from Hurricane Florence and its storm related remnants.
Commissioner Troxler immediately set up the Hurricane Florence Agricultural Disaster Program of 2018 and charged NCDA&CS staff to implement it. NCDA&CS developed a crop loss application program, an evaluation (verification of loss) program and resource assistance program (grant payment related to loss). The objective was to log, review and payout in the quickest means possible. Various NCDA&CS workgroups were established using staff across 17 divisions of the department.

More than $15.2 million in payments were mailed on Jan. 20, 2019, with another batch of checks going out Feb. 1. Employees continued the work of providing relief aid for the rest of last year, with the last remaining aid payments going out just last week.
This program was wide-reaching across North Carolina, with more than 7,200 verified crop loss claims. The scope of response within NCDA&CS was vast. In all, 160 employees were involved in some way because of the need to move quickly and work directly with farmers and others affected.