STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
When Hurricane Helene blew ashore earlier this year, it knocked down a lot of trees in southern forests. And for many landowners, those trees were investments, nest eggs. Now timber owners are looking to the federal government for help. Grant Blankenship of Georgia Public Broadcasting reports from Treutlen County, Georgia.
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GRANT BLANKENSHIP, BYLINE: In a pine forest in east Georgia, a logging crew is trying to find trees worth selling. Hurricane Helene's 90-mile-an-hour winds turned this forest into a maze of downed pine trees. Now machines made for cutting trees down are slowly plucking them out of the jumble. The scene is repeating across the South, including on land owned by Wade Webb.
WADE WEBB: There's one block that I looked out that I wanted to cut this year. It's 60 acres of stuff like this right here.
BLANKENSHIP: Helene mowed down most of those trees, which had been growing longer than the 24 years Webb has been in this business. Now he has to salvage what he can. Webb says it's enough to change the course of his life.
WEBB: Yeah. I mean, that's what was going to be my retirement.
BLANKENSHIP: Wade Webb is not alone. Commercial timber losses come to about 1.8 billion dollars across the forest states hit hardest by Helene. That's Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida. Georgia alone accounts for about three-quarters of that loss. Some of it is on land owned by Ben Gillis and his family. Gillis is also a board member on the Georgia Forestry Commission.
BEN GILLIS: This stand's about 30 years old, really needed another five years.
BLANKENSHIP: That's in order to sell it for top dollar as the saw timber, like you buy at the home improvement store or use to build a house.
GILLIS: Before Helene, saw timber was bringing about $35 a ton.
BLANKENSHIP: These trees are no longer saw timber. The longer they stay on the ground, the more their wood degrades and decays, what the industry calls bluing (ph). And once a tree blues...
GILLIS: It's all pulpwood from that point forward.
BLANKENSHIP: Pulpwood brings the lowest price, which means salvage loggers are in a rush to get trees off the ground while they're still worth something.
GILLIS: It's a race against time right now.
BLANKENSHIP: So think back to that tree meant for saw timber before Helene at $35 a ton. What's it worth?
GILLIS: Now 2- to $4.
BLANKENSHIP: A ton - in this worst-case scenario, that's a 90% drop in value for a tree that's been growing for a generation. It's easy to see how farmers in an industry where there's no crop insurance are wondering how they can afford storm cleanup. In his truck riding through ruined timberland, Ben Gillis says tree farmers are looking for help from the federal government.
GILLIS: They're wanting some way to be made whole.
BLANKENSHIP: That's not likely, says Georgia Republican Congressman Austin Scott. Scott serves on the House Agriculture Committee which will craft federal Hurricane Helene disaster relief for farmers.
AUSTIN SCOTT: You know, if somebody had $1 million worth of timber that got blown down, I do not expect that they're gonna be made whole.
BLANKENSHIP: He expects money for cleanup and maybe for replanting. Ben Gillis says some of the land may be put to other uses to make money.
GILLIS: I guarantee you, there's people that would have said no to a solar field, and today, they would heavily consider it, you know?
BLANKENSHIP: For his part, Congressman Scott fears trading trees for solar farms will only undercut agriculture and the businesses connected to it.
For NPR News, I'm Grant Blankenship in Soperton, Georgia.
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