Wilton Simpson, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s been going on in the state.
With Hurricane Idalia, the Department of Agriculture is ready to help.
Simpson said, “I’ve got a team in Central Florida and I’ve got a team in North Florida on each side of the storm here. It made landfall this morning in Key Beach at 7:45. We’re obviously waiting for that storm to get on through so we can start deploying our frontline responders into the area. It’s too early to get real damage assessments. We clearly know the storm surge is a major issue around Cedar Key right now we’re getting reports of six, seven feet storm surge. That easily could go much higher than that. We’re hoping for the best there.”
The state has ordered more fuel and taken away restrictions on weight so supplies can be moved around the state much easier.
Simpson said, “Here in Central Florida, the Tampa Bay area, we’ve got a lot of storm surge all along our West Coast from anywhere from Sarasota north into the Big Bend area. That’s going to continue throughout the day. That’s going to be our biggest challenge in those areas. We’ve lost power. I wouldn’t call it widespread in those coastal regions. It’s been many several thousands of people, not tens of thousands. Our utilities are well prepared in the stage to get those going again. In more of Central Florida, we dodged the worst of it, but of course in the Big Bend area, the storm came in at a number three, which is going to be very devastating in that Keaton Beach area and Cedar Key and Siena Hatchie, those that area of the state.”
Fuel was a big issue with this storm.
Simpson said, “We had a crisis within a crisis. We had 29 gas stations that we identified Saturday or Sunday, that had fuel contamination. There was a mixture of diesel and gasoline, none of that affected the Miami or the Keys area, but along the Tampa Bay area, stretching down as far as Fort Myers. We actually had to go in and shut down 29 gas stations. We got more than half of those cleaned up now and back in operation. Our team did a great job getting that going. We were very proud of that. We have been very aggressive on hauling fresh fuel into the state, getting our ports back open, which we hope that by early afternoon, today, most of our ports, south of Central Florida will be open again and receiving fuel. We also looked at the weight restrictions on our commodities around the state so that we did make sure that our food supply chain was not disrupted. We got ahead of the curve on this storm very quickly. I would caution anyone in the area affected clearly to stay indoors today, maybe tomorrow if you can. Let the first line responders get everything cleared, let’s get the power back on and then start going back into these areas that have been affected.”
Could the storm affect the food supply?
Simpson said, “I’m hopeful that the answer to that question is no that we won’t have any disruptions. We made waivers in that area of the state in particular, which we were not originally focused on, we were focused on a much more broad swath of state, but peanuts, tomatoes, corn, things of that nature that is being ready, we’ve given them waivers to be able to get that food in much quicker, the last three or four days ahead of the storm. So I believe a week or two from now we’ll look back and we will see that we got most of that product in. We were moving animals around the state. We were able to move animals intrastate. We have partners in the southeast, that we can move on interstate and intrastate. I think we’re going to say that we fared very well here. We’re going to lose a lot of timber, as we did in Michael. So that’s going to need to get cleaned up pretty quickly and replanted. There’s a lot of peanuts in that area, a lot of row crops. So we’re going to have to do an assessment. Fortunately, in that area, things drain fairly well. We’ll have that assessment in two or three days. Clearly, I think this is not going to be a major disruption to our food supply, though, because of the early response and the great response we had from our local farmers, getting that product into the market.”
The concern right now is getting back to business.
Simpson said, “We have to go in and make sure that the affected areas are safe for our citizens and our consumers. That’s our biggest concern today is to get everybody back in a position to where they can live their lives, grow their food and go back to work and get their jobs and families back in order. We’re going to be doing that over the next week. Our Department of Forestry it’s under the Department of Agriculture. They’re going to be in probably five or six hours from now we’ll be clearing roads, our chainsaw crews will be out. We’ll be clearing roads, getting where the utilities can get them, get the powerlines back up. Our biggest concern is the health and safety and welfare of our citizens in the affected areas immediately. In the meantime, we have normal operations going on everywhere else in the state. So anywhere else in the state, we are doing our normal jobs, of protecting not only our food supply, but our consumers, Weights and Measures, you’ll see normal activity throughout the Keys area, South Florida, obviously, and in the western panhandle. Everyone else in the affected area is sort of concentrated now on making sure that we’ve got everything restored for the hurricane. It’s going to take years to recover completely. It’ll take many years, just like in hurricane Michael was five, six years ago, now. There’s probably 30 or 40% of that fuel still on the ground. There’s going to be a lot of trees down in this area. There’s going to be a lot of damage property. It’s going to take years to restore those communities. But we’re going to do everything we can to get people back on their feet in the next few months so that they can at least live their lives and move forward as we continue to restore.”
Livestock will also be damaged as well.
Simpson said, “We’ve given waivers for commodities to be hauled around the state whether it’s cattle or eggs or any other further commodities. We’re doing what we can do, but there’s going to be fences down just like any other hurricane, you’re going to have a lot of damage to your agricultural community. We would like to include a block grant in the farm bill) so that we can try to operate in real time. The biggest challenges that we have is we can operate in real time to clean up, but we don’t normally get to operate in real time to recover because it takes months and sometimes years, for the federal government to put a spending package together to come in and help us. So what I’m doing now is pushing the federal government to use this farm bill package that will be delivered, hopefully in November or December this year, to bring the type of funding we need not only to, handle Irma’s damage, which again, a lot of those farmers, some of them have went out of business because they could not get the proper assistance that they’re going to be getting in the next few years, they just couldn’t hold out long enough. So I’m asking the federal government to speed that process up, allow it to come through the Department of Agriculture in block grants so we can get that money to those farmers so that they can recover quicker. That’s our goal at this time.”
Florida’s agriculture lands are also being protected from being acquired by foreign enemies.
Simpson said, “In the state of Florida today, our foreign enemies, I think there’s seven countries listed, can no longer buy agricultural lands in the state of Florida, or in and around our military installations. That was very important. I believe the legislature did a very good job last year. We worked very hard on that effort. Obviously, our food is a national security issue. We want to remain that way. We are being sued. The Department of Justice, of course, is on the other side of this lawsuit, along with some Chinese Nationalists. I believe the state of Florida will ultimately prevail. It’s one of those lawsuits that you never enjoy being sued for any reason as a Department of Agriculture, but we certainly are going to stand our ground on this. I believe, as it works its way up through the court system, if we lose it a lower court, which we have not yet, but if we do, certainly I believe the Supreme Court will side with us on state’s rights on this issue. It was promising and encouraging to hear now in Congress, they’re trying to put a bill through to do the same thing nationwide. When we filed that bill last year in the state there were many other states that took up that same call and trying to protect our farmlands and military installations in this country, from our foreign enemies. We’re pleased to be on the front line of this lawsuit. We’re going to fight vigorously. We’ve had I think, 12 other state attorneys from around the country, join in our lawsuit. We’re happy to be the tip of the spear in protecting Florida agriculture and our military installations from our foreign enemies. When you think about your supply chain, and you think about being in a pandemic, or a war or a crisis like this hurricane, knowing that we have control of our supply chains, and we’ve got Florida farmers, we’ve protected our farmland, we particular million military installations from people that would harm us. It’s a great feeling and I think it’s it was good work on behalf of the legislature.”
Mike Stapleford of KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM noted, “We certainly extend our well wishes and sympathy and prayers to all those affected by Hurricane Idalia.”
Simpson said, “I appreciate what our frontline people are doing and what our troops are doing out here now our frontline forces all over the state. We appreciate what they’re doing. We’re going to continue to protect our food supply. We’re going to continue to protect our consumers. And I really appreciate you getting this message out.”