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SAUNDRA AMRHEIN and JONI JAMESAcross eight counties, crops and infrastructure are battered. The damage may be worse than Andrew's.
ARCADIA - Across the Peace River valley immature oranges carpet the fields like lime-green golf balls.
At the region's only citrus processor, orange juice concentrate threatens to sour because insulation around giant refrigeration tanks has peeled away.
And in the Hardee County town of Wauchula, an ornamental nursery faces $4-million in losses, and migrant workers face an uncertain future.
Three days after Hurricane Charley hit the heart of Florida's agricultural industry, De Soto, Hardee and six other counties are battered and unproductive.
"There is an amazing amount of loss of fruit I'm seeing on the ground," Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said Monday afternoon as he stood at the Peace River Citrus Products processing plant.
Bronson had spent the day flying over citrus groves and visiting a storm-tossed nursery before stopping at Peace River. He fears Hurricane Charley may have caused more agricultural damage than Hurricane Andrew in 1992.
"We know it's going to be high ... in the hundreds of millions of dollars," he said. "It's bad, it's really bad."
The Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association estimated losses of $100-million but warned that the figure was subject to change. The group represents a sector that annually battles citrus for first place in the state's agricultural ranks.
Florida Citrus Mutual, the state's largest citrus grower organization, estimated that 280,000 acres, or 35 percent of the state's 800,000 citrus acres, had been in the path of the storm.
Florida Agricultural Statistics Service in Orlando told industry leaders that it won't even begin making its assessments for two more weeks, allowing more time to determine the extent of damage.
Beyond the losses it caused for to individual growers and ranchers, the storm also damaged infrastructure, said Jim Strickland of Oak Knoll, past president of the Florida Cattlemen's Association.
In both Arcadia and Wauchula, cattle markets and feed stores were severely damaged at the height of calf-selling season, Strickland said. Trailers and camps for migrant laborers were struck hard by the storm. And in dairies, a lack of electricity to power milking machines threatens to lead to an outbreak of mastitis, an infection common in unmilked cows, Bronson said.
Some citrus growers hoped there might be a bright side to the destruction.
Bumper orange crops last season, coupled with reduced demand for orange juice among carbohydrate-wary dieters, has greatly lowered the price for orange juice concentrate, the dominant product of Florida's citrus industry.
If enough of this year's crop was destroyed, prices might rise, some growers hoped.
"It could help stabilize the price," said citrus grower and state Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, who estimated he'd lost 20 percent of his fruit, including whole blocks of grapefruit groves.
"Right now all the tank farms are full of juice and it was going to be a challenge to handle all the fruit we were going to have," he said.
But Lisa Rath, executive vice president of the Florida Citrus Processors Association, held little hope. The state's processors have a 40-week supply of concentrate, compared to the normal reserve of 19 weeks, she said.
"Unfortunately, this industry is still a victim of lack of demand," Rath said.
But farmers also noted that they can expect up to $2.5-billion in federal crop insurance payouts in the region. And the storm came before much of the fall season of row crops were planted.
"By and large the vegetable guys are feeling lucky today," said Mike Stuart, chief executive for Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association. "For those teetering on the edge, this can be the thing that tips them over. But one of the tragic elements of the business of agriculture is that if everyone has a perfect growing season, no one makes any money."
Such economics mean little to five men from Chiapas, Mexico, who spent two days in the desert crossing the U.S. border last month on the promise of finding work with Florida's fall citrus crop.
For the past month the five men, ages 19 to 30, have bunked in a mobile home in Wauchula, awaiting the season.
But Monday afternoon Ermitanio Perez, 27, sat in his sweltering mobile home, worrying. Many of his neighbors, fellow migrants, had scattered after the storm. Perez didn't know how he was going to support his wife and 3-year-old daughter back home.
While his friends washed their clothes with bottled water, Perez worried that there would be no help for undocumented immigrants like him. He was hoping, at least, that they might get work helping to clear the debris - the only obvious job left.
"I don't know what we're going to do," he said.