Robert Coker, a vice president for U.S. Sugar and Southern Gardens Citrus in Clewiston, took a drive through the growing areas of Belle Glade and South Bay on Tuesday morning.

"They basically look like a war zone," he said. "It's pretty incredible. There are downed power lines everywhere. There's an awful lot of mobile homes that have just been gutted."

He said it was a sad day for agriculture in South Florida.

The company has damage in both citrus and sugar, he said.

"One thing about farmers is we will pick up and recover," he said. "But the damage is extensive."

Southwest Florida growers didn't get lucky this time.

The four hurricanes that hit Florida last year spared them. But Wilma didn't.

After a helicopter tour Tuesday, Florida Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson said he estimated more than a billion dollars in damage to the state's agriculture industry. Crop damage alone is expected to be in the hundreds of millions.

"I would say that it's more than serious," Bronson said. "It's to the extreme."

He said some growers might see no profits this year because of the damage.

Much of the destruction is in Southwest Florida, where citrus and tomatoes are big business. Bronson plans to tour Homestead and LaBelle today and will meet with growers to further assess damages.

Hurricane Wilma tore up tender vegetable plants and flooded fields. It blew off citrus fruit and uprooted trees. It knocked sugar cane to the ground and it beat up barns and equipment.

"It will undoubtedly be a matter of days before the full assessments can be worked up," said Terry McElroy, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

"We know the damage is extensive and fairly comprehensive in those areas from Southwest Florida through Palm Beach and Homestead as well."

For Florida's growers it's another big blow.

"We took another major hit and of course what makes it all the more difficult is that it comes on top of the $2-to-$3 billion in damage we sustained last year from the four hurricanes during a six-week period," McElroy said.

Wilma couldn't have come at a much worse time for Southwest Florida's vegetable growers. Fall crops were in the ground but not yet ready to be picked as the Category 3 storm blew through Monday, making a direct hit in Collier County.

The region's fall vegetable crop includes tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers and squash. As the storm approached, there were more than 15,000 acres of vegetable plants in the ground in Southwest Florida, worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Eugene Tolar, owner and president of Red Star Farms in the Devil's Garden growing area 25 miles east of Immokalee, had 400 acres of tomatoes in the ground. He thinks he probably lost half of that to the hurricane.

"It's been a long time in coming," he said of the storm. "It just finally got here."

Collier County hasn't had a direct hit from a hurricane since 1960.

Tolar's smallest plants took the biggest beating.

"They're pretty much history," he said. "It's hard for tender vegetable plants to survive 100 mile an hour winds."

Tolar's largest plants were about 2 feet fall and they fared the best. Though they lost a lot of leaves, he hopes the plants will regrow.

Despite his losses, Tolar expects to have plenty of work because he needs people to clean up the dead plants.

David Sheon, a spokesman for Plant City-based Ag-Mart Produce Inc., which has tomato fields in Immokalee, said the storm was "pretty devastating."

"Ugly Ripe (tomato) production is going to be severely affected across the country and it's going to take about 12 weeks to replace that crop," he said. "It's virtually entirely wiped out at the Immokalee farms."

The Ugly Ripe is an old-fashioned beefsteak tomato that Ag-Mart has bred for its taste.

Reggie Brown, manager of the Florida Tomato Committee, which markets the state's round tomatoes, said every grower he's talked to in Southwest Florida has reported structural damage to buildings. That's on top of the crop damage.

He said some tomato fields were completely under water after the storm. He said the wind was so strong that it blew some tomatoes off the bush in Immokalee.

"That is very unusual to see that kind of damage," he said.

Last year, Southwest Florida growers packed about 18 million cartons of round tomatoes. That was out of a crop of about 52 million boxes for the state.

Brown said the damage to the tomato crop could affect prices but that increases might not be as big as last year when storms hurt crops in northern counties. Last year's storms hit earlier in the season when Florida is the dominant supplier of tomatoes.

Hurricane Wilma also hit Hendry and Collier citrus growers hard. Between the two counties there are about 130,000 acres of citrus groves.

"Growers in these areas have seen their groves, barns, equipment and homes severely impacted by this storm," said Andy LaVigne, Florida Citrus Mutual's executive vice president and chief executive, in a written statement. "This will certainly have an impact on their livelihoods and this season's citrus crop."

Preliminary reports shows that as much as 15 percent of the citrus crop has blown off trees. Some trees are leaning over or uprooted.

With downed communications lines it has been hard for Florida Citrus Mutual, the state's largest representative for growers, to assess the damage. It hopes to have a better idea of the damage by the end of the week.

Robert Coker, a vice president for U.S. Sugar and Southern Gardens Citrus in Clewiston, took a drive through the growing areas of Belle Glade and South Bay on Tuesday morning.

"They basically look like a war zone," he said. "It's pretty incredible. There are downed power lines everywhere. There's an awful lot of mobile homes that have just been gutted."

He said it was a sad day for agriculture in South Florida.

The company has damage in both citrus and sugar, he said.

A tree was sticking through U.S. Sugar's main building in Clewiston off Sugarland Highway when Coker drove up Tuesday.

"Our sugar warehouses blew in and collapsed in Clewiston," he said. "They are bigger than football fields. They completely imploded and collapsed."

He said employees were asked to report back to work Tuesday. He said both his companies are looking to get up and running again as soon as possible. There will be a lot of clean-up work, Coker said.

"One thing about farmers is we will pick up and recover," he said. "But the damage is extensive"

© 2005 Bonita Daily News and The Banner. Published in Bonita Springs, Florida, USA by the E.W. Scripps Co.