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With support from viewers like you and 12 to 15% of our total production, it is a very large number.

Louisiana farmers and food producers take a major economic hit from Mother Nature.

If you think that you have flu symptoms, get seen early.

Flu cases on the rise again.

Here's what to know.

What keeps me active is having the parents and I have my mom and dad state parks working to be more accessible.

Now we've got drawings, designs of the actual depot.

We got that ready to go.

Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

Passenger rail service rounds.

The home stretch.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Karen Lula and I'm care sincere.

Much more on those top stories in a moment on this week's edition of SWI.

But first, governor elect Jeff Landry is continuing to expand his administration.

This week, Richard Nelson was appointed the secretary of the Louisiana Department of Revenue.

You might remember Nelson's name from earlier this year.

He ran for the governors seat during the election season but dropped out of the race in September.

He is also a state representative for the North Shore.

Nelson isn't the only new addition to Landry's cabinet.

He also appointed Gerard Consiglio, undersecretary of the Department of Revenue.

James Lee, legislative liaison at the Department of Revenue.

Colonel Charlton McKinley, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs.

And Ernest Lazar, Junior Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Alcohol and Tobacco.

We'll continue to keep you posted throughout Governor elect Landry's transition.

Much more on those top stories in a moment.

But first, here are some headlines making news throughout the state.

Louisiana rounds out 2023 with $25 billion in economic investments.

The news comes from the Louisiana Economic Development Annual report.

2023 marks the state's seventh consecutive year over year capital investment, growth, energy and emissions reduction projects are driving much of the recent investment.

The Louisiana Homeowner Assistance Fund, a federally funded relief program that assisted homeowners financially affected by COVID 19, has disbursed all program funding.

$146.7 million in assistance to Louisiana homeowners.

The funds from the U.S. Department of Treasury for pandemic mortgage assistance went to 7793 homeowners throughout the state.

LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels is the Associated Press College football player of the Year, the school's second winner.

In the past five seasons.

Daniels is a finalist for the Heisman Trophy and the SCC Offensive Player of the Year.

The deadline to withdraw Louisiana's congressional districts is extended yet again.

Lawmakers now have until January 30th to replace the old map, but it's not clear when a special session will take place to get started.

Governor John Bel Edwards hasn't given any indication that he'll order lawmakers back to the Capitol before he leaves office in January.

This means the incoming Landry administration will see the map to completion.

Louisiana's crops, livestock and forest took a nearly $1.7 billion hit from Mother Nature due to this year's extreme weather.

LSU agriculture experts tallied up the damages and say soybeans and sugarcane suffered the largest losses.

As we enter the 2024 growing season, many farmers and food producers are battling lower prices and lower yields for many cash crops.

Plus, continued rainfall shortages.

Here's more.

Louisiana farmers and producers are battling both production losses and increased cost.

After Mother Nature dealt a $1.69 billion blow to Louisiana's crops, livestock and aquaculture is 12 to 15% of our total production.

It is a very large number.

Louisiana Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain and LSU agriculture experts are surveying what's become the longest and most widespread devastation to crops, animals and plants in recent history.

This is by far the best in terms of total magnitude of the economic impact.

This is by far the largest one related to just strictly drought or a lack of rain.

This lasted the duration of the growing and harvest season for many of the commodities.

And so that's kind of the uniqueness of this drought versus some of the other droughts that we've had in the past.

That's certainly not a commodity that we grow commercially that didn't have at least some impact from this drought.

Rebounding from Mother Nature's wrath is nothing new to Louisiana farmers.

Growers and livestock owners.

However, weather events such as hurricanes and storms tend to be localized and short term.

This year, total rainfall was down nearly 44% from May through October from the previous four year average.

And the dry season isn't over.

Soybeans and sugarcane took the hardest hit, so the Plant Enterprises was a little over $800 million just just in itself in terms of total economic impact.

Soybeans and sugarcane are both 300 to $350 million in impact just for those commodities.

A couple of reasons for that.

One, just because in the case of soybeans is by fall, we had the most acres of soybeans and any other commodity in the state.

Dry pastures created hay shortages, making it hard for cattle farmers to sustain their herds.

Cattle farmers have had significant issues because they had to liquidate and then higher costs not only to feed their animals but to get water.

Water is an expensive commodity.

Very little hay was made probably 10%, 10% of what is normally made, and a number of farmers have had to replant.

So replant their ryegrass and that and so that's short.

We've been liquidating cattle herds, liquidating them, and that's happening in many areas of the United States.

So if you look at our livestock industry, well, liquidation, lower weaning weights and yield rates, loss of forage.

That is an ongoing issue.

Extreme weather is also standing Crawfish season, which began in December.

So far tallied losses.

All that together was about $139 million.

So the crawfish industry each year is somewhere between 3 to $400 million in terms of farm gate value.

So it is a pretty significant impact in terms of losses and reductions in revenues and our increases in cost of production relative to the normal farm gate value for crawfish.

We're very concerned about where the crawfish industry will be as we go in to crawfish season.

We know already there have been very low harvests there.

We also know that a significant number of acres were not flooded.

We couldn't flood them because there simply wasn't enough fresh water without pulling in saltwater.

And then again, with the drought and the other things, we'll probably have an earlier crawfish season, but it won't extend out as far.

Louisiana's four has dealt with a double whammy of drought and wildfires, which took out thousands of acres of trees.

We had significant timber damage to from the wildfires.

Most of that was conservative estimate.

It was 70% of the timber basically had no more value after the wildfires and as high as 90%.

The second impact was much like row crops.

Trees grew a lot less this year than they normally.

A third impact was producers.

Typically landowners excuse me, typically plant new seedlings to reforest harvested timberland in January or February of each year because of the drought, a lot of those seedlings are died.

So when you add up all of those three things, I think we gain we're looking at somewhere around $300 million impact for the forestry industry as we head into the 2024 growing season.

Agriculture experts caution that Louisiana's record breaking weather isn't over.

The predictions are that we're not going to see a shift in the weather patterns really until February.

You know, a significant shift in the weather patterns.

Agriculture Commissioner Mike Strain is working with the Federal Government to ask for aid for Louisiana's farmers.

Food producers and foresters, cases of respiratory illnesses are spiking all over the region, with the Southeast being hit particularly hard.

Experts of the Louisiana Department of Health say Regions three and four have the highest number of flu cases, though the number isn't as troubling as in previous years.

Health care providers are urging the public to take precautions as we head further and further into the holiday season.

Viral respiratory illnesses are making the rounds across the U.S.

The CDC recorded a 6.2% increase in the nation's influenza positivity rate the first week of December, which is up at least 3% from October.

Experts say it's the H1N1 virus that's responsible for most of the spread.

But a new warning is out from the CDC about a rise in respiratory illnesses.

The agency is reporting RSV cases are likely peaking, new flu cases are rising and COVID 19 is still the biggest concern here.

11 states plus New York and Puerto Rico are experiencing high or very high levels of respiratory illness activity.

The cases seem to be rising the most in the West Coast mountain region and the Southeast with little sign of slowing.

Have you been seeing that uptick at Baton Rouge, General?

There's been a significant increase in the emergency room and our urgent care is here in the clinic.

We've definitely seen an increase in the number of flu cases that are coming in.

Dr. Jacob Wood is a family physician at Baton Rouge General Hospital.

He says the emergency room is filling with patients experiencing flu like symptoms.

These symptoms, are they normal flu like symptoms or are they more severe?

Now, we've been seeing typical flu symptoms, body aches, cough, headache, moderate fever, general kind of weakness, malaise, that kind of stuff.

It's been pretty typical.

What about hospitalizations?

Not a lot.

We do have a couple of people in the hospital.

Baton Rouge General right now with the flu, but it's not like it's overwhelming the hospital.

Louisiana's caseload has been sporadically climbing since the fall, although influenza incidences typically increase around the middle of winter.

Physicians like Ward found themselves treating patients as early as October.

It was just a little sprinkling of flu coming through kind of back in September, October, we were seeing kind of sporadic cases.

And, you know, we don't really consider it a flu season when and sporadic like that.

It's more that that kind of thing can happen through the year, really.

But the real kind of flu season seems to have started up closer to Thanksgiving.

In addition to the flu, what is also seeing an increase in COVID cases?

The strain strength isn't as strong as previous variants during the pandemic.

But he says it's still something to be noted when it comes to COVID and the flu.

Our cases pretty even.

Or is the flu outpacing COVID?

I think they're pretty even, at least from what I'm seeing.

They're pretty even.

And I think we're seeing the same thing on the statewide data, but they seem to be pretty even.

And we test all of our patients that come in because their symptoms are so similar.

We test for both.

I would say they're they're about equal.

And I would also say they're they're fairly equal in severity right now.

Once experiences typical of the rest of the state, the Louisiana Department of Health has been monitoring positivity rates since the initial spike in early fall.

As of now, regions three and four near West Louisiana are experiencing the brunt of the spread with portions of north and east Louisiana following suit as more holiday festivities approach.

Would cautions that cases may rise again.

If you think that you have flu symptoms, get seen early.

The treatments for the flu especially.

So Falluja is very effective.

But only if you get treated in the first couple of days that you have it.

So if you wait until you've been sick for three or four days, you've kind of missed the opportunity to get treated.

So as soon as you start to have body aches, fever, cough, those kind of typical flu symptoms, go ahead and get seen.

So bottom line, if you or your loved one come down with a fever or flu like symptoms, take precaution.

Always cover your mouth, wash your hands and stay home if you can.

RSV cases are also spiking in Louisiana.

I spoke with Dr. Joseph Kanter, the state health officer at the Louisiana Department of Health.

Here's what he had to say.

Can you tell me where in Louisiana we're seeing most of the cases for RSV?

All over the state, really.

So this is the peak of our respiratory virus season.

And so we're dealing with COVID, we're dealing with RSV, and we're certainly dealing with the flu.

I'll say outbreaks of the flu right now are about double the national averages were in the tier with the highest amount of flu activity nationwide to us in South Carolina and then all other 48 states below that.

So a lot of respiratory viruses going around right now.

Rates of flu and RSV in particular, are exceedingly high throughout the state and in all regions of the state as well.

So whenever you say it's high in all regions of the state, is there a number that you can give me?

So for flu, they're a little bit higher in the New Orleans area and Baton Rouge area as well.

But I'll tell you, because the rates are so high statewide and because we're in the very top tier of flu activity nationwide, our rates are about double what they are on average nationwide right now.

Flu is spreading at a very high level in all regions of the state right now.

Wow.

So why do you think the cases are skyrocketing in Louisiana in particular?

You know, on one hand, every flu season is different in our species.

And on the other hand, it's not uncommon for Louisiana to lead the nation in flu cases.

We typically have very severe flu seasons here in Louisiana.

This is shaping up to be a rather average flu season.

But I'll tell you, on an average flu season, Louisiana loses somewhere between on average 500 to 1000 people.

Mortalities just flu every year.

And a lot of those are preventable through the flu vaccine, the seasonal flu vaccine.

So this is not something that we should be taking for granted.

Flu activity is exceedingly high right now, as is RSV activity.

So can you tell me what are the differences between flu symptoms and RSV symptoms?

You know, most of the time there might not be any differences.

It can be very hard.

Clinically based on symptoms alone to tell the difference.

All respiratory viruses, flu, RSV, Kobe, a number of other viruses, too.

They can look identical, either shortness of breath, malaise, feeling, just run down, feeling flu, a lot of GI symptoms to stomach upset, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea.

All of those can be coming in to the person or the family.

You oftentimes can't tell the difference whether it's flu, RSV, COVID or another respiratory virus.

It's have the test.

And now there's a lot of hospitals are moving to swabs that can test for all of those respiratory viruses at the same time.

Plans for a long awaited passenger rail service between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is on the homestretch as Louisiana waits on 200 million in federal grant funding.

The federal grant money will pay for infrastructure improvements along the route, which will run on existing freight train tracks.

Louisiana and Amtrak officials have signed the deal to run an Amtrak passenger train with seven stops, including the city of Gonzalez, where plans are underway to build a rail station and raise the city's profile.

Here's more.

This stretch of railroad tracks in Gonzalez is part of an 80 mile Amtrak passenger train corridor connecting Baton Rouge to New Orleans.

Gonzalez is one of seven stops along the way.

This ascension Parish city of approximately 11,000 residents plan to capitalize on its claim to fame as the jambalaya capital.

Plus, its other tourist and commerce attractions.

Once the rail is operational.

Gonzalez has a plan in place to build a station to welcome visitors and serve locals.

I will tell you that we didn't waste any time.

We bought property immediately to do where at one time we had a depot.

Many, many, many years ago.

And this is the general area where we're going to be located as well.

Plans to bring back passenger rail service in this corridor started 15 years ago, just as Mayor Arseneault took office.

He soon learned from the State Department of Transportation and Development that Gonzalez was along the proposed route.

So the city sprung into action, creating a rail station master plan.

We went to work with our our in-house engineer and put together a plan of action.

And now we've got drawings, designs of the actual depot.

We got that ready to go.

So it's just a matter now in wait and see.

The Amtrak passenger rail service is on the homestretch as it awaits an anticipated $200 million federal grant to improve existing tracks that the train will travel, including the replacement of the 1.8 mile Bonnie Cary Spillway Bridge.

The train will run on existing tracks owned by freight train operators.

In October, Governor John Bel Edwards signed an agreement with Amtrak officials to put the train in motion with $50 million in state funds for rail infrastructure improvements.

The Amtrak line connects Louisiana's capital to the state's largest metropolitan area with seven stops.

The alternative mode of public transportation aims to alleviate traffic congestion along the I-10 corridor, stimulate economies and commerce, and serve as public emergency evacuation transportation.

One of the things we look at is tourism.

And one would say, okay, what about Gonzalez?

You know why?

Why?

You're the stop point.

I mean, listen, we've got antebellum homes along the river that I see busses come through every single day, come through Gonzalez out of New Orleans.

Why not take the train?

A lot of our seniors can't drive any more.

Why not take the train, read a newspaper, read a book?

Why are you going down there?

Or vice versa to Baton Rouge?

It's just so many things that can be so wonderful on this train in Baton Rouge to train stations are in the works.

One downtown and the other in south Baton Rouge, strategically located in what's known as the Baton Rouge Health District, which is seeking a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan a train stop to foster easy transportation access to medical services.

The last passenger train to pull through Baton Rouge ceased service in 1969.

The Amtrak passenger train is on track to start service as early as 2027.

It's been quite a ride.

The new service will connect with the New Orleans to Mobile Gulf Coast Corridor Service, projected to open in 2024.

These routes will join the Sunset Limited city of New Orleans and Crescent Lines in Amtrak's Louisiana route schedule.

George, Word was always an active kid.

Despite his physical challenges, being diagnosed with muscular dystrophy in first grade did little to stop his affinity for outdoor activities.

But often the chair he used would limit his mobility, at least until now.

A program spearheaded by Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser is providing the action track chair to eight different Louisiana State Parks so other outdoorsmen like George can explore all Louisiana has to offer.

What's going to see is a very broad type of disease, muscle disease, and there's many different forms and variants.

And I have one called Limb Girdle Muster to see.

George Ward was formally diagnosed with limb girdle muscular dystrophy when he was in first grade.

The disease causes weakness in the muscle tissue, making it hard for patients to walk or perform other everyday activities.

George's condition largely affects his joints and forms contractions like in my knees, my elbows and my hips.

So I'm really tight everywhere.

And that's and that's why I'm in a wheelchair.

But despite all of this, George never gave up his mobility.

How do you remain active in spite of the muscular dystrophy?

It's I think what keeps me active is having the parents and I have my mom and dad there.

I don't know what I would do without them.

My dad, he he made it to where I can do pretty much anything I want to do.

George's parents pushed him to do sports, baseball, football, you name it.

But his real love was for the outdoors.

He hunted and fish since he was a kid.

His father thought it best to continue that activity into adulthood.

Why was it so important to make sure that he was involved in things like sports or making sure that he could participate in outdoor activities that a lot of people with his disability, they don't get outside much and it's in him and all.

And it's something that he has just has a passion for.

And if he didn't want to go hunting, I don't want to go on, you know, that's usually how it is.

Then he gets into it and catch up with all his friends.

And there's a lot of camaraderie that goes along with it.

So it helps him be more social.

That's yeah, lift the spirits a little bit.

Yeah.

But all of George's outdoor hobbies just got a little easier and more accessible thanks to the action track chair.

We were able to order a track chair at Blue State Park, which is an all terrain chair.

Imagine trying to tape tires on a wheelchair that allows people to go wherever they would like within our great state parks.

Brandon Burris is the director of Louisiana State Parks.

He and the lieutenant governor brainstormed a way to make Louisiana's outdoor activities more accessible to disabled outdoorsmen like George.

The action track chair was the perfect fit.

The state started a pilot program to make these chairs a permanent fixture at Fountain Blue, a state park at Mandeville.

There's parts of our park system such as trails, boardwalks, nature, areas that people might not be able to access before we go, or so opportunities for persons with a disability to just see a part of the part of our great state that they just never had access to the board.

The chair is expertly made for off roading and uneven terrain.

It can travel on dirt roads, rocks, bumpy fields, all landscapes, the woods brave for a good hunt.

But what makes it even better is how comfortable it is.

When George rides in the chair, he can shift his seat to avoid bumpiness, all with the touch of a button.

This one has the capacity to move the joystick on the right side and share to the backside of the chair, depending on the mobility and dexterity issues, that individual may have an issue that can actually be detached and connected to the back portion of the chair.

So a companion or friend, a caregiver may be able to drive the chair themselves.

That person's not a passenger.

So we really do our homework.

The chair is currently available at eight different parks in Louisiana.

Burris says the parks are just the beginning of the program.

We have full intentions to eventually spread this program to all of our sites and not just state parks and the expansion.

We also have state historic sites such as Fort Hudson, which resumption share also.

And so we're responding to the major signage to expire.

But for George, the chair is more than just a means to travel or hunt.

He says it brings the need for accessibility to the forefront and is becoming a necessity.

I think on people trying to look outside the box at outdoor activities like the park itself that weren't technically all the way accessible with winding roads and trails that aren't you can't get to in a regular wheelchair.

I think it's nice that they're looking at places like that and stuff that's available for the public to be able to use.

What a great resource for people like George, so full of life and adventure.

Yes, he can continue doing all the activities that he loves.

Well, that's our show for this week.

Remember, you can watch anything LP any time, wherever you are with our OPB app.

You can catch OPB news and public affairs shows as well as other Louisiana programs you've come to enjoy over the years.

And please like us on Facebook X and Instagram for everyone that.

Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

I'm Karen Lavoie.

And I'm Garrison Keillor.

Until next time.

That's the state we're in.

Every day I go to work for Entergy.

I know customers are counting on me.

So Entergy is investing millions of dollars to keep the lights on and installing new technology to prevent outages before they happen.

Together, together.

Together.

We power life.

Additional support provided by the Fred Bea and Ruth B Zeigler Foundation and the Zeigler Art Museum, located in Jennings City Hall.

The museum focuses on emerging Louisiana artists and is an historical and cultural center for Southwest Louisiana and the foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting.

With support from viewers like you.