Tropical Storm damage cleanup continues with farmland in the Coachella Valley

News Channel 3 contacted multiple farm owners in the Coachella Valley, and some say they are still recovering from the tropical storms that hit the Valley.

Arthur Futterman from Futterman Farms in Indio says they did not experience as much damage as others, but the storms affected his crops.

George Tudor, owner of Tudor Ranch, says, "Well, for the east valley, the storm on 9/1 (Chelsea) was much more devastating". "Hillary and Chelsea combined have destroyed 30-40% of the date crop. Chelsea alone has done tens of millions of dollars in damage to agriculture across the Valley. The oasis slope has massive water damage from flooding, and people are beginning to see some of their vegetation fields die due to bacteria generated from Chelsea."

Craig Armstrong, the owner of Thermiculture Management, says, "We have had graders and earth moving equipment working six days a week for the last three weeks." "A lot of our fields, we will not know how the trees will respond to the loss of topsoil when we get our spring root flush. We are now trying to rebuild our soils with compost to replace all that was lost. All of this and getting started on our harvest have made this last month very busy and very challenging." They are getting things back in order regarding cleanup, but the lemon trees they lost must be replanted. "Those new trees will take 2-3 years to get back into production," says Armstrong.

Mark Tadros, owner of Aziz Farms, says, "We had flooding at our packing facility and lost power and water for several days." Tadros says they lost their well pump due to a power surge from IID, which he says is an ongoing issue. They also lost about 40% growing of their date crop. "We had several downed trees due to wind," says Tadros. They are now three weeks behind schedule for planting and seeding of vegetables.

Tune in to News Channel 3 at 4/5/6 p.m. to hear how this impacts the Coachella Valley.