The summer’s moisture has put a damper on the $21 billion Alabama timber industry. Summer is usually a busy time for the timber industry.
“Normally we’ve been in drought conditions, it hasn’t been a lot of moisture in the summertime especially. We get some winter rains, but nothing like we’ve had in the last four, five weeks,” S.E. Forest Industries CEO, Toby Warr said.
But recent moisture has bogged down more than the ground, it’s bogging down business. “Our business pretty much depends on being able to get in and out of the woods, and all of the rain, the log trucks weigh 80-90,000 pounds sometimes. If they can’t get to the highway to get the wood out, we can’t haul wood and make money,” Warr said.
“We were down here, just a little ways from us. We couldn’t get the loader out. It was sinking and that’s just how wet and saturated the ground is. Just a little movement here and there, you can go out of sight,” logger Darren Shellhouse said.
Some work weeks have been cut down to 2-3 days because of the rain. “It’s been hard to get in places to work, about a couple of weeks ago we finally got a whole week to work. A week before then we probably got two and a half days of work and then this past week we got a half a days of work,” Shellhouse said.
Shellhouse says they’re ready to work hard, be productive and get more loads out if the weather permits. Warr says they’ve had equipment vendors offer interest only payment options to try and help out with costs.
From WTVY 4 News: https://www.wtvy.com/home/headlines/Timber-Industry-Suffering-From-Recent-Moisture-217462851.html