An irrigation sprinkler system about 300 feet long lay overturned in a field, its steel pipes bent and welded joints broken. The mangled remains of a grain bin sat crumpled by a road. On a Friday in early December, Hopkins dragged burly limbs from the path of the tractor-like machine that picks his cotton crop six rows at a time.

Twisted equipment and snapped tree limbs still litter Chris Hopkins’ Georgia farm more than two months after Hurricane Helene made its deadly march.