Local farmer loses nearly 1,300 bales of hay, heavy equipment to flood damage

GREENE COUNTY, Tenn. (WJHL) -Hurricane Helene’s impact has been felt by everyone in the area. It has devastated southern Appalachia from Asheville, North Carolina, to Newport, Tennessee.

DMD Family Farms in Midway, Tennessee, got the worst of the storm. Co-owner Jamie Durrau said they were told in advance, but the severity of the flooding caught them, like everyone else, off guard.

“The flood took us by surprise on that Friday night. We had a little bit of warning, maybe a couple of hours.” Durrau said. “So, we evacuated our animals and as much of our equipment as we could. But unfortunately, we stored our years’ worth of hay in some chicken coops that we have over here. All of that was either submerged or greatly damaged by the floodwaters.”

Mold and maggots now fill the barns and silos as the water has ruined everything it reached.

“We had 1,500 dry bales of hay stored in those barns, and then we had about another 250-300 wrapped bales that floated down the river, except for four. At this moment, we may have something around 300,” Durrau said.

“I don’t think anyone around here had ever expected something like that was possible,” she said.

Like most in the area, the family never considered a flood insurance policy for their property, so the path to recovery will be challenging.

“As of right now, we have no insurance policies that would cover any of our losses,” Durrau said. “It was for animal feed. We don’t raise a crop, sometimes there’s crop insurance. There may have been insurance that we could have had. It just wasn’t even on our radar for something like this. So, we are kind of just hoping that it’ll all come together with people’s generosity there. Like I said, we’ve had lots of people reach out wanting to donate hay, and so we’re just kind of in a walk of faith here to see how it will all come out.”

Luckily, there are sites set up for farmers who need day-to-day supplies like feed, hay and fencing.

Milton Orr is the extension agent for agriculture and natural resources in Greene County. He and others have organized five sites to provide these items in the area.

“We’re focusing specifically on agricultural needs at this site and other sites across the northeast.” Orr said, “And what we’re trying to do is supply the immediate needs, not able to supply the entire need of anybody, but to try to help out in terms of things like replace fencing, emergency hay supplies, feed supplies, that type of thing that allows the crops.”

Orr described how tight-knit the farming community is and knows they’ll pull together to get through these hard times, though it may take years.

“Farmers are the most resilient people I’ve ever seen,” he said. “The amount of supplies that have been brought in here and the people that have brought them an outpouring of support is just unbelievable. But this is not something the farmers are going to recover from in a year, probably not for several years.”

The distribution sites are located at the Cocke County Fairgrounds, Greene County Fairgrounds, the Appalachian Fairgrounds, Fenders Farm and the Mountain City Co-Op.

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