Massive storms like Hurricane Helene and Milton can devastate the people and

properties that take direct hits causing billions of dollars and damages.

But the economic effects of these events can be felt thousands of miles away and for many months to come.

Megan Lenhart is a senior economics writer for Barons.

Megan, we talked to a tomato farmer who took a whack from both Helene and Milton in Tennessee and Florida.

Let's listen to what he had to say.

When Milton hit, there was significant damage already done from Helene coming by to the coastal communities.

This just made it worse.

It'll be a traumatic period of time both for retail but particularly for food service the restaurant chains

So we're talking about the effect on the people who are buying his product what are the other ways that people far from these

storms will be feeling effects? He makes some great points there. I mean this is

something where our food chain is national and international.

And it's interesting, some of the initial estimates

coming out of Florida alone for just Milton,

it's going to be a $25 billion dollar damage that the food and agricultural

communities are going to sustain from this. So this is something where we're

going to see it affect food prices in the short term. Keep in mind the

citrus production in Florida makes up about 17% of the nation's citrus

production and of course it's going to be one of those things where it might not be a today problem, but it could also be a tomorrow problem.

Keep in mind that some of these agricultural products are things that go towards animal feed, which of course then goes into that kind of

production of food chain it's not only you know families who are getting tomatoes from their local grocery store but as you know the farmer did point, this is going to affect the restaurant industry and food services industry because they obviously need these items in bulk.

And I presume that it's not just agriculture we're talking about, it could also apply to manufacturing output.

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