{"id":30475,"date":"2026-08-10T10:39:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T14:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/?post_type=press-releases&p=30475"},"modified":"2026-08-15T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T01:04:09","slug":"sen-ossoff-continues-pushing-to-support-georgia-farmers-impacted-by-high-winds-from-hurricane-helene","status":"publish","type":"press-releases","link":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/sen-ossoff-continues-pushing-to-support-georgia-farmers-impacted-by-high-winds-from-hurricane-helene\/","title":{"rendered":"Sen. Ossoff Continues Pushing to Support Georgia Farmers Impacted by High Winds from Hurricane Helene"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atlanta, Ga.\u00a0<\/strong>\u2014 U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is still fighting for Georgia farmers impacted by Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ossoff\u00a0launched an inquiry<\/a>\u00a0with Dr. Neil Jacobs, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), requesting data about wind speeds during Hurricane Helene as Sen. Ossoff continues fighting to support\u00a0Georgia farmers and growers who are struggling to recover from damage from high\u00a0winds during Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The inquiry comes after last month,\u00a0Sen. Ossoff\u00a0urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)<\/a>\u00a0to evaluate all available National Hurricane Center (NHC)\u00a0data and take \u201call possible actions within your authorities to ensure that growers who purchased HIP-WI crop insurance policies from the Federal Crop Insurance Program receive the maximum support possible from USDA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite experiencing crop and production damages, producers who purchased Hurricane Insurance Protection \u2013\u00a0WindIndex (HIP-WI) coverage through USDA in Screven, Effingham, Chatham, Bryan, Evans, Liberty, Long, McIntosh, Wayne, Glynn, and Camden Counties did not receive indemnity payments, which are payments made to farmers after they face qualified losses like from natural disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These indemnity payments are only made if the NHC determines that a county (or adjacent county) was impacted by sustained hurricane-force\u00a0winds. According to a\u00a0new report<\/a>\u00a0published by the NHC in February 2026, \u201cwind\u00a0gusts in the 70-79 knots (kt) range were measured by weather stations in Towns, Chatham, and Echols Counties,\u201d suggesting more farmers in these counties should be eligible for indemnity payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI write on behalf of Georgians who continue to suffer from the effects of Hurricane Helene but have been denied the compensation they expected under their hurricane insurance coverage,\u201d\u00a0Sen. Ossoff wrote to Dr. Jacobs.<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cThe Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency (RMA) relies on NOAA data on sustained wind speeds to determine whether farmers who purchase Hurricane Insurance Protection – Wind Index (HIP-WI) coverage will receive indemnities following the devastation of a hurricane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHurricane Helene caused $5.5 billion in agricultural and timber losses in Georgia. Despite these overwhelming damages, RMA determined that several counties in southeast Georgia did not experience requisite \u2018sustained wind\u2019 to trigger policy coverage. As a result, growers who purchased HIP-WI coverage in those counties were not compensated,\u201d\u00a0Sen. Ossoff continued.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ossoff continues working to help Georgia agriculture recover from Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sen. Ossoff\u00a0introduced<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0Farm Disaster Tax Cut Act\u00a0<\/em>to provide farmers with a temporary tax cut on crop insurance payments in the event their crop yields or revenues fall below their guaranteed level due to natural disasters such as droughts, floods, and diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March, Sens. Ossoff and Rev. Warnock\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0more than $531 million in Hurricane Helene Federal relief for Georgia\u2019s farmers after Sen. Ossoff\u00a0successfully fought to pass<\/a>\u00a0a bipartisan disaster relief package in December 2024 that included $21 billion in agricultural disaster funding to help Georgia farmers recovering from the disastrous impacts of Hurricane Helene and farmers nationwide impacted by natural disasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a>\u00a0to read Sen. Ossoff\u2019s full inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # #<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atlanta, Ga.\u00a0\u2014 U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is still fighting for Georgia farmers impacted by Hurricane Helene. Sen. Ossoff\u00a0launched an inquiry\u00a0with Dr. Neil Jacobs, Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), requesting data about wind speeds during Hurricane Helene as Sen. Ossoff continues fighting to support\u00a0Georgia farmers and growers who are struggling to recover […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30475","press-releases","type-press-releases","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/30475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-releases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/30475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30486,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/30475\/revisions\/30486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}