The more time Art Bradley spends riding around Edgecombe County, the more crops he find that were either destroyed or damaged during Sunday's storm. "It is pretty severe in places," said Bradley, who is director of the Edgecombe County Cooperative Extension Service. As of Tuesday morning, Bradley estimated roughly 600 acres of tobacco in Edgecombe County were destroyed by the storm, another 1,200 acres of tobacco was damaged by wind or hail and another 600 acres of tobacco was moderately damaged meaning farmers are trying to stand the stalks back up in the field.
The tobacco that was destroyed was destroyed by both wind and hail. Driving through Edgecombe County, it's easy to spot the tobacco that took a beating. Hail left multiple, large holes behind in leaves. In some fields it looks like someone took their hands and pushed the leaves on about one-third of the stalk downward snapping their stems, leaving the leaves dangling from the stalk.
"Tobacco took the brunt of it from a crops standpoint," Bradley said. Bradley said he's not sure about meteorological terms but he knows the destruction in the area from Sharpsburg to Pinetops and around Bulluck Elementary School back to the Wilson County line experienced damage "as bad as any hurricane we've had in this area." Bradley said trees are down, roofs are off houses, a barn fell and killed two cows and roofs were partially blown off two chicken houses.
"We had a wide swath of destruction through that area," he said. Crops were damaged at varying levels outside of Tarboro and in the northern part of Edgecombe County near Leggett. Bradley said most of the tobacco affected by the storm had been topped already. "We don't have a whole lot harvested yet," he said. The tobacco up above Tarboro was less mature and still had blooms in it. But Bradley said hail broke stalks there in some instances. There was scattered hail damage to tobacco across Wilson County, according to Norman Harrell, Wilson County agriculture extension agent.
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