Hurricane Matthew Aftermath

Hurricane Matthew is causing some health and farm related concerns. In North Carolina, flooding from the hurricane has killed about 5 million bird poultry, mainly chickens. There has been a total of 1.8 million confirmed kills of chicken and soon to be raised. Sanderson Farms, the third largest poultry meat producer in the U.S., has lost over 250,000 chickens to the storm. Not only is the flooding killing the chickens, but also invading hog waste pits. The waste will mix with the flood water and eventually hit the ocean through rivers and such. Van der Vaart, the secretary of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, stated that even though it is unknown how much pig sewage has merged with the flood water, it will be diluted enough that the environmental impact will be minimal.

Hurricane Matthew

Hurricane Matthew has wiped Haiti and is moving along our east coast as we speak. Already costing the US $6 billion in damages, this is the most expensive storm since hurricane Sandy. This hurricane is setting multiple records including highest rainfall in one day, highest atmospheric moisture, and highest observed gust in the US. Not to mention the death toll at the moment is already 1045 people. This tropical storm peaked at a category 5 only 80 miles north of Columbia, headed through Haiti  at a 4 and then hit Cuba at a 3, and rose back to a category 4 when it hit Florida. Not to mention, Haiti has still not even fully recovered from their incident in 2010 when they were hit with a magnitude 7 earthquake. The storm is now in tropical depression 200 miles east of North Carolina.