A STRUGGLE FOR
Restoration HURRICANE MICHAEL RECOVERY
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By G.B. Crawford, Director of Public Relations
leak. Other service vendors helped put together temporary irrigation lines and delivered generators. But such services are expensive. The business is relying about waist height was pretty upon savings while Hennen much gone.” and his team attempt to pay for One greenhouse was a restoration and reconstruction total loss. The hurricane blew work. And Oglesby is still at 50% apart or ruined fans, irrigation of its production capacity after systems, lighting, heaters and more than six months. other equipment as well as shade “This storm has been more covers and roofing. The walls of a challenge than anything that of buildings were riddled with I have been involved in since holes. Virtually no part of the I started with the company in properties escaped damage. 1982,” Hennen said. Although Some damage posed employees have resumed emergencies for both the production, the cost of recovery company and its neighbors. has been overwhelming. For example, the winds Hennen, also an owner, ruptured a gas line in one of the emphasized that the staff has greenhouses. Mary McKenzie, documented the enormous an owner and daughter of the losses inflicted by the hurricane. company’s founder, Ray Oglesby, “But the insurance companies recalled, “You could see the have done nothing but give us vapors. One of the heaters had problems. Over six months have been pulled off the building and passed and they have sent us the line was shooting gas into limited funds and are delaying the air. We could not shut it off.” additional payments A specialist from Pensacola for ridiculous reasons.” drove for seven hours through Based upon experience so rubble and debris so he could far, “The lack of funding from get to the facility and stop the the insurance companies is
FLORIDIANS WHO SUFFERED LOSSES due to Hurricane Michael last year have trouble summarizing their experiences. The destruction in affected areas was so overwhelming, its impact cannot be easily conveyed. In April, after a data analysis, scientists at the National Hurricane Center announced that Michael was a Category 5 storm with catastrophic winds of 160 mph. The hurricane affected farm commodities in 25 Florida counties. For many agricultural producers in the Panhandle region, the ordeal of recovery continues to be a daily grind. Gary Hennen has reason to question whether the operation he has helped to lead for nearly 40 years can even survive. Hennen, president of Oglesby Plants International, Inc. in Calhoun County, said the plant propagation business lost 80% of its inventory along with buildings and equipment. “The storm picked up an air conditioning unit and threw it into a wall, knocking it down,” he recalled. “All of the plastic in the greenhouses was completely blown away. Everything from 12
FLORIDAGRICULTURE | JUNE 2019
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