Crop Disasters Declared in Puerto Rico

Crop disasters declared for 55 Puerto Rico municipalities

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has declared 55 municipalities in Puerto Rico as  crop disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by high winds from Tropical Storm Erika that occurred from Aug. 27-28, 2015. Those municipalities are:

Adjuntas, Aguas-Buenas, Aibonito, Arecibo, Arroyo, Barranquitas, Bayamón, Caguas, Canovanas, Carolina, Cataño, Cayey, Ceiba, Ciales, Cidra, Coamo, Comerio, Corozal, Culebra, Fajardo, Guayama, Guayanilla, Guaynabo, Gurabo, Guánica, Hatillo, Humacao, Jayuya, Juan, Juana-Diaz, Juncos, Lares, Las-Piedras, Loiza, Luquillo, Maricao, Maunabo, Morovis, Naguabo, Naranjito, Orocovis, Patillas, Peñuelas, Ponce, Río-Grande, Sabana-Grande, Salinas, San, San-Lorenzo, Santa-Isabel, Trujillo-Alto, Utuado, Vieques, Villalba, Yabucoa and Yauco.

All municipalities listed above were designated natural disaster areas on Nov. 12, 2015.

Crop Disasters 2015

Beginning January 7, 2015 USDA has declared crop disasters in at least 3,673 counties and county equivalents across 46 States [as well as Puerto Rico, and US Virgin Islands]: Those states are Arizona, Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.

• About 99 percent of the 2015 crop disaster designations have been due to drought so far this year.

Crop Disasters 2014

In 2014, USDA declared crop disasters in at least 2,904 counties across 44 states. Most of the designations were due to drought.

Those states were:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan. Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. [FIRE-EARTH has documented all of the above listings. See blog content.]

Notes:
i. USDA trigger point for a countywide disaster declaration is 30 percent crop loss on at least one crop.

ii. The counties designated as agricultural disaster areas, as listed above, include both primary and contiguous disaster areas.

iii. Some counties may have been designated as crop disaster areas more than once due to multiple disasters.

iv. The U.S. has a total of 3,143 counties and county-equivalents.

Related Links

• Crop Disasters Declared in 10 U.S. States November 5, 2015
• More Crops Destroyed by EWE in Nine U.S. States October 29, 2015
• Drought, Deluge Destroy Crops in 12 States October 22, 2015
• Drought, Freeze… Kill Crops in 173 Counties across 7 States October 16, 2015
• Drought Destroys or Damages Crops in Three U.S. States October 8, 2015
• Crop Disasters Declared across Multiple Areas October 1, 2015
• Drought
• Agricultural Disasters Index

Dominica Set Back 20 Years by ERIKA: PM

Deadly tropical storm ERIKA, devastates Dominica, killing at least 20

Tropical storm ERIKA has devastated the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica prompting the prime minister to declare that his country has been set back 20 years.

“The visual damage I saw today, I fear, may have set our development process back by 20 years,” said Skerrit after surveying his storm-ravaged island country, which has a population of only about 75,000.

Flooding and mudslides caused by the storm has claimed at least 20 lives, and the authorities expect the death toll to rise.

Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit the deadly storm had caused “monumental destruction” to his country including key infrastructure facilities and roads, and that “hundreds of homes around the country have been destroyed or rendered unsafe to occupy,” local media reported.

Skerrit said the that massive damage had been inflicted on key infrastructure facilities and roads, and that “hundreds of homes around the country have been destroyed or rendered unsafe to occupy.”