By Clint Thompson
Natural disasters are unfortunately a common occurrence in the Southeast, especially in Florida. The Sunshine State can experience most any type of natural disaster event in any given year. These range from the annual threat of tropical storm or hurricane to the generational freeze event that crippled the state earlier this year.
No matter what event that Florida producers encounter, they should be prepared, which includes having adequate documentation.
Doug Phillips, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) blueberry Extension coordinator, talked about that lesson learned from this past January ahead of next year’s blueberry season.
“Documentation is everything. If a weather event, be that a freeze or a hurricane or whatever, is projected, have some good photographic or video documentation of how the field looks and how the plants look and everything prior to that,” Phillips said. “And then after the event, before you start to do repairs, again, take photographic evidence, video evidence of the nature of the damage. Do that so when it comes time to do those crop insurance claims to justify disaster assistance recovery funding, there will be good documentation in place of a before and after nature.”