Out-of-sight and struggling: Georgia farmworkers still reeling from Helene

LAKE PARK, Georgia — In the early-morning darkness of Sept. 27, the day Hurricane Helene barreled through their South Georgia farmworker community, Gloria and Ramón huddled with their three children in the living room of the family’s trailer home, as roaring 130-mph winds downed a tree onto one of the bedrooms with a terrifying crack. In a panic, the family sprinted out into the rain and toward their car.

“We thought the storm would just blow us all away,” Ramón, a 42-year-old Mexican immigrant, said.

Alongside the dirt roads that crisscross Ramon and Gloria’s neighborhood in this small town near the Florida border are scores of trailer homes covered by bright blue tarps, a replacement for the sheet metal roofs that are strewn about in mangled shapes.

These residents are increasingly desperate farmworkers. Helene not only battered the neighborhood’s frail housing stock, but also devastated the fields that farmworkers rely on for income. Weeks in the fall that are typically spent picking pepper, chili, cucumber, eggplant and cauliflower came and went without work, and without paychecks.

“We were left without work, without anything,” Gloria, 44, from Guatemala, said. “The fields are ruined.”

Gloria and Ramón are undocumented immigrants who lack legal status and work permits. They, like others in the Lake Park community, spoke to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for this story on condition that their last names not be used because they fear deportation.

Hurricane Helene caused roughly $6.5 billion in damage to the state’s agriculture and forestry industries, according to preliminary assessments by the Georgia Department of Agriculture, the Georgia Forestry Commission, and the University of Georgia.

Gloria and Ramón are among the lucky few whose roof was repaired — but it took over a month for the work to be completed.

The tree that crashed through their bedroom wasn’t removed until three weeks later, leaving the family exposed to swarms of mosquitoes as they slept on a mattress in the kitchen. Despite the ravages brought on by the storm, which included 15 days without power or water, the family continued paying their $800 monthly rent.

While some men have been able to find occasional construction work, most residents are still waiting to get called back to the fields. They fear a new paycheck won’t come their way until the spring planting season. Meanwhile, many have burned through their savings to spring for generators and gas, and to continue making rent payments.

‘We’re not going to get any help’

Agricultural labor has brought the Lake Park immigrant community an intimate familiarity with South Georgia’s weather patterns.

Standing amid Hurricane Helene’s debris on an unseasonably warm day in early November, farmworkers expressed a sense of both pain and bafflement. Still scarred by memories of Hurricane Idalia’s move through the region just last year, many are starting to think about leaving — a potential headache for farms once they are operational again and in need of workers.

“My children ask me if another storm is going to come and I tell them that I don’t know. That probably, yes,” said Victoria, 39, from Mexico. She has eight children, ranging in age from 5 to 13. She said many of them developed heat rashes during the time the family spent without power and air conditioning.

“Three-hundred sixty hours,” Victoria said, “I wrote it down.”

To put food on the table in the wake of Hurricane Helene, unemployed farmworkers like Victoria have relied on charity and on the food stamp benefits, for which their U.S.-born children are eligible.

When a grower’s crop or livestock is wiped out, government aid and insurance are important sources of assistance. Earlier this month, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office announced $100 million in disaster relief for farmers. Indemnities to Georgia growers from the federal government have exceeded $200 million.

But farmworkers say none of that money trickles down to help them.

“The farmers are insured. But not us. If we don’t work, we don’t get paid. We have to work to earn any money,” said Adelina, a mother of three, also from Mexico.

Speaking just days after Donald Trump was elected president, immigrant farmworkers in Lake Park said they worry about the coming administration that will likely be even less open to assisting people like them.

“We’re not going to get any help. Even less now that Trump got back in,” said Eduviges, 52. “He’s going to tell us to go back to Mexico.”

Eduviges lives with four relatives in a trailer. With their metal roof blown away by the storm, they’ve installed a tarp to protect their home, but water still gets in every time it rains. They’ve had to get rid of a soiled sofa as well as ruined mattresses and beds. Their washing machine broke. Snakes slid into the house during nights of total darkness during the near month-long power outage that followed Hurricane Helene, she said.

“The good thing is that we’re at least all alive,” Eduviges said.

‘This hurricane brought me poverty’

On a recent Tuesday, aid workers with the United Farm Workers Foundation and two student volunteers from Valdosta State University set up tables near Victoria and Adelina’s trailers in Lake Park, where they placed bags of groceries for farmworkers to take.

The donation drive drew dozens of local families — the children chattered in a mix of English and Spanish, while their parents caught up with one another in Spanish and Mixtec, an indigenous language. A group of stray dogs came by as well.

“This hurricane brought me poverty,” Adelina said after bringing the donated groceries into her home. While her wait for a roof replacement continues, water stains are growing on the trailer’s walls. If mold propagates inside, it could pose serious health risks to her 12-year-old son, who is asthmatic.

According to Alma Young, Georgia organizing coordinator with the United Farm Workers Foundation, the bulk of post-Helene recovery efforts in South Georgia have taken place near urban centers such as Tifton or Douglas, making them inaccessible to farmworker communities who live in more remote areas.

When donation drives have taken place closer to farmworker residences, Young says they weren’t widely advertised in Spanish, causing many to miss out. Her organization is calling on Congress to include farmworkers in any upcoming disaster relief legislation.

“Farmworkers are still at the very bottom when it comes to receiving any type of assistance,” she said. “It’s just been very frustrating to see that, once again, the farmworker community is just sort of forgotten.”

An additional obstacle: Many food and supply drives in the immediate aftermath of the storm included the participation of law enforcement.

That creates a chilling effect among some undocumented residents. Earlier this year, Kemp signed a bill that calls for closer collaboration between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials.

Ines, a farmworker and a mother of three, spent 17 years living in South Georgia. She said it weighed on her to go to the drinking water distribution site that had been set up in Lake Park after the hurricane because members of the National Guard were there. She went anyways.

“When you’re in need, you have to take a risk,” she said. “I did it for my kids.”

Food drives of the kind that was recently organized by the UFW Foundation are becoming ever more rare, even as the need for assistance remains. Meanwhile, the trauma of the storm also lingers.

“It rained a lot yesterday, and she was afraid,” Ramón said of his youngest daughter, who is 6. “It’s like that memory [of Hurricane Helene] is still there. She held me and she wanted to cry. My son [who is 13] also got scared. ‘What’s going to happen?’ he said.”