NM dairies still digging out from 100-year storm

NM dairies still digging out from 100-year storm Albuquerque Journal By Lauren Villagran / Journal Staff Writer - Las Cruces Bureau Dairymen and women forged their way through snow blowing so hard and fast it seemed to come in sideways. They dug through drifts as tall as a man, working to get their cows milked and fed in temperatures that with the wind chill dropped far below zero. At home, they rolled breakfast burritos and turned out crockpots of hot food for their families and workers stranded by the storm. The power went out. The roads were impassable. For two days after Christmas, the blizzard “Goliath” pounded eastern New Mexico, hitting dairies around Clovis, Portales and Roswell especially hard. Many dairy cows – possibly thousands – were smothered by massive snowdrifts, fatally injured in the treacherous weather or struck with illness that could kill them in coming days. The losses are still being tallied. “Producers are still digging the snow out of their facilities,” said Beverly Idsinga, executive director of the Dairy Producers of New Mexico, an industry group. “They have lost animals, but their first priority isn’t to count the lost. Their first priority is to take care of the survivors.” ‘Screaming blizzard’ The region is used to the occasional winter storm, but nothing of this magnitude. Farmers, state and federal agencies and emergency responders held conference calls ahead of time to discuss preparations. Still, the severity of the blizzard, particularly gale-force winds, caught many producers off guard. “It was a screaming blizzard for a day and a half, two days,” said Charlie DeGroot, co-owner of Three Amigos Dairy in Roswell. “The wind with the snow is the problem because (the cows) will crowd to one side of the pen to stay warm. They start making a snow drift. The major losses will be with the young stock.” Tara Vander Dussen blogged about what her family farm and others went through, how everyone pulled together – the hard work through the blizzard at all hours, the exhaustion, the efforts to keep everyone warm and fed. She said the family’s three Rajen Dairy farms near Clovis lost 18 cows, 50 calves and 10 tankers’ worth of milk – a loss of more than $80,000 in wasted milk alone. Together, the Rajen farms milk about 10,000 cows a day. “We weren’t able to milk,” she said. “The snowdrifts were piling up at the back of the barn, and we couldn’t get the cows in. The power went off, and the wells went off. The farm ran out of water. Snow was piling up in the pens. We really had that wind, and that was the killer. If the snow had fallen straight, it wouldn’t have been that bad. It all piling in one area created a lot of problems.” The storm moved in late Dec. 26 and raged through two nights. Peak gusts reached 82 mph near Clovis, and the wind chill sharpened the already icy temperatures, according to Kerry Jones, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque. The danger to animals and humans was serious. “During the heart of the event, wind chills ranged from minus 5 to minus 25,” he said. “When wind chills get to minus 15 or 18, exposed skin freezes in about 30 minutes. When you have winds that are that strong, sustained for that long, it is just brutal.” $1.5B industry New Mexico’s 145 dairies – most of them family-owned – are a $1.5 billion industry that produces 4 percent of the nation’s milk supply. At least 90 dairies were in the worst part of the storm across Chaves, Roosevelt and Curry counties. Farmers who lost cows and calves may be eligible for financial relief under the 2014 federal Farm Bill, according to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency. New Mexico State University extension dairy specialist Robert Hagevoort said producers could have lost 5 percent of their herds. An estimate of 30,000 dead cows, quoted widely in the media, is speculative, said Hagevoort, Idsinga and officials with the Farm Service Agency. It is still too early to tell, Hagevoort said. “That will tell you the extent of the storm,” he said. “We’re still trying to figure out where we’re at. It’s obvious the losses are extensive.” Milk production was hurt as dairies struggled to get cows to milking parlors, and tanker trucks couldn’t get into or out of dairies with the roads snowed in. Dairies “poured milk down the drain for four days,” said Lynn Muncy, executive director of the Chaves County office of the Farm Service Agency. Producers lost “millions of gallons,” he said. Still, milk prices at the grocery store aren’t expected to rise as a result of the storm due to ample supply on the market, Hagevoort said. How quickly the dairies recover may depend on how mild – or not – the rest of the winter is, he said. Vander Dussen’s extended family works in the dairy industry. Many risked life and limb, she said, to care for their animals, laying out new feed every time the snow began piling up, breaking up ice in the water troughs, clearing the paths to milk barns. “These stories I keep hearing, it’s amazing more people weren’t lost or hurt,” she said. “This is how much people care about their cows and their employees. It was a 100-year storm. It was amazing how much more prepared we could have been, but I just don’t think anyone had any idea.”