New Jersey's largest dairy farm still recovering 6 month after tornado
The EF-3 tornado tore through Wellacrest Farms in September
New Jersey's largest dairy farm still recovering six months after Ida
It’s been six months since Ida. People and businesses are still recovering. In the northeast - New Jersey’s largest dairy farm lost almost everything. Katie Byrne is live there with an update on recovery efforts.
MULLICA HILL, NJ – Six months since a tornado from the remnants of Hurricane Ida ripped through New Jersey's largest dairy farm, the area continues to recover, but there is still a long way to go.
Post-tropical depression Ida helped fuel a strong tornado on Sept. 1 that ripped through southern New Jersey, causing severe damage along the Mullica Hill area.
The National Weather Service Office in Mt. Holly determined the tornado caused damage along a 12.6-mile path, ending as an EF3-rated tornado near Wellacrest Farms, which suffered devastating damages and displaced hundreds of cows.
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FOX Weather correspondent Katie Byrne first reported from Wellacrest Farms a month after the storm and returned Monday, about six months after recovery efforts began at the farmland to see how it is going.
Marianne Eachus is one of the farm owners and described the past few months as "trying" but said the out-pouring of help through volunteers and donations had made a difference.
Wellacrest Farms has been in Eachus' family for three generations.
Eachus said that when they got the tornado's alert, her family took cover, and when they emerged from the basement after the storm, everything was gone.
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"We came upstairs, we live across the street, and our house faces the farm and the silos, and they were gone," Eachus said.
It took all day to get 600 cows into pins and until the following day to have running water for the bovines.
Eachus said she and her family were so exhausted throughout the first day it didn't hit them until the sun came up the next morning.
"We've come a long way in five months," Eachus said, adding, "we're going to be picking up trash for months forward."
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Eachus told FOX Weather all the blue barns and structures on the farm are new and all new electricity had to be put in. She said the cows are all back in barns and seem happy with their new accommodations.
"Everything blue here is all new. So it will be here for future generations," Eachus said.