LEE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA – There are many farmers in North Carolina who are still struggling nearly a month after Hurricane Florence barreled though our state.

  • Farmers in Lee County lost more than $1 million in crops due to Hurricane Florence.
  • Governor Cooper plans to allocate money to help farmers.

Governor Cooper visited a tobacco farm in Sanford Monday that was severely damaged by the storm. John Gross with Gross Farms says his family lost more than $1 million worth of crops when the storm came through.

The governor plans to allocate money in the budget to help families like his in the future.

 "We hope they come through with some kind of emergency funds, to help out the farmers," said Gross. "Because if they don't there's gonna be a lot of farms that's gonna be out of business. Usually when a farm goes out of business they don't come back."

"There's no question our farmers are going to need help above and beyond the federal help that they usually get in these types of storms. So you'll be seeing in my proposed budget some help for farmers because we do not want them to go out of business," Governor Cooper said. 

The Gross family says they're lucky enough to also own a pumpkin patch at a corn maze to make their profit for the rest of the year.

It's only open until the end of October on Pickett Road in Sanford, so they hope the public will come out and support them.