首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Orange farmers call one of their earliest-ripening varieties Pineapples. But, in the days after Hurricane Charley tore thr
Orange farmers call one of their earliest-ripening varieties Pineapples. But, in the days after Hurricane Charley tore thr
admin
2010-01-10
55
问题
Orange farmers call one of their earliest-ripening varieties Pineapples. But, in the days after Hurricane Charley tore through Florida’s inland orange county, the fruit on the ground looks more like green racquetballs. Small. Hard. Useless.
Charley was a ruthlessly efficient harvester—the hurricane arrived a couple of months before an orange is supposed to be dislodged from its branch. The storm stripped oranges and grapefruits from countless trees at orange groves. In some of the worst-hit fields, two or three oranges dangle from each tree and thousands lie on the ground. In other places, trees are split down the middle, lying on piles of soon-to-be-rotting citrus.
The devastation in the groves strikes at one of the state’s signature industries, the ubiquitous "Florida orange juice" behemoth that is recognizable worldwide.
Florida produces more oranges and grapefruits than any other state; the industry has an economic impact on Florida of $9 billion a year, including $1 billion in tax revenue.
Great chunks of that economic juggernaut could be imperiled, though the damage is still being assessed.
The storm last week shredded swaths of seven of Florida’s biggest citrus-producing counties, responsible for one out of three oranges and grapefruits raised in the state.
Charley arrived at a jumpy time for citrus growers here, who were already rattled by recent battles with inexpensive imports and—more important—a huge dip in sales attributed to the popularity of low-carbohydrate diets, which discourage drinking orange juice. Some growers worry that the devastation will force many out of the citrus business.
Frances Causey, 92, has watched Florida’s best-known crop get its color all her life, a life of frost and drought and economic catastrophes.
"We’ve had ups and downs, but we’ve never had this," she said Monday.
Causey—alone in the rock-solid clapboard house her father built nearly a century ago—watched as Charley ran roughshod through her groves. The house sits up on a bluff, overlooking Wauchula, one of the dozens of small towns in Florida’s interior raked by the storm’s winds.
These little town—places that don’t show up on many maps, with such names as Zolfo Springs, Brownville, Fort Ogden and Moffitt—are dozens of miles from the coastal towns of Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte, which have gotten the most attention in the aftermath of Charley. Far from major media markets, the tiny rural communities have slogged along in a kind of grim, solitary survival march. The vast tracts of soggy land around the towns look like "old Florida"—swamps filled with cabbage palms, meadows shaded by oak trees and miles of citrus groves. Pickup trucks steered by men in sweat-stained fertilizer-company hats skid and bump down narrow, rutted country lanes, where barely solid land seems to be losing the battle against the overwhelming wetness.
These are places that grow things—oranges and grapefruit and cattle—and make things. They aren’t places people go on vacation. This is the other Florida, the one that feels like the Deep South. And some, the people who call this other Florida home, feel forgotten in the storm.
"We were listening to the radio and the television and they never talked about us," said Mary Stombaugh, who lives on a country road outside Arcadia, about 50 miles from Sarasota. "It really upset me. "
Stombaugh and her husband, Jerry, never thought a storm that started in an ocean could find them in the country-road heaven they fell in love with two decades ago.
They hosted 11 relatives and friends in their house, each fleeing cities closer to the coast, or to the north, that were supposed to take direct hits but went largely unscathed. The orange groves across from Stombaugh’s house are ruined. Just up the road from Stombaugh’s home, with a bright-blue tarp now serving as a roof, tractor-trailers hauled fat tanks into a crumpled orange juice processing plant so huge that it resembles an oil refinery. Jason Cloud drove out to gaze at the sagging plant, calculating the impact on a region where agriculture is king.
"You drive around and it almost makes you cry," said Cloud, who works as an orange grove harvesting coordinator.
The citrus business, like any agricultural endeavor, has its own calculus of supply and demand. The misfortune of growers slapped around by Charley will likely produce higher prices for the farmers whose groves went unscathed.
"They’ll benefit from our loss," said John Causey, the nephew of Frances Causey. "Maybe five years from now, we’ll benefit from their loss. "
Which of the following sentence is true?
选项
A、All the orange groves in Florida have been destroyed by Hurricane Charley.
B、The victims may recover from the loss soon.
C、The government will give relief to these victims.
D、Some orange growers may benefit from the disaster.
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/SRsO777K
本试题收录于:
BEC中级阅读题库BEC商务英语分类
0
BEC中级阅读
BEC商务英语
相关试题推荐
•ReadthearticlebelowaboutmoneymanagementinBritain.•Foreachquestion31-40.writeonewordinCAPITALLETTERonyo
•ReadthearticlebelowaboutmoneymanagementinBritain.•Foreachquestion31-40.writeonewordinCAPITALLETTERonyo
•Readthisintroductiontoanarticleaboutanapproachtomanagement.•Choosethebestsentencefromtheoppositepagetofil
TheRoleofanHRManagerFundamentally,ahumanresourcemanagerdevelopsacompany’sculture,maintainsbenefitsandpayro
TheRoleofanHRManagerFundamentally,ahumanresourcemanagerdevelopsacompany’sculture,maintainsbenefitsandpayro
Readthetextbelowabouthowtoformagoodmanager.Inmostofthelines(41-52)thereisoneextraword.Itiseithergrammat
•Lookatthenotesbelow.•YouwillhearanintroductiontotheFarmers’MarketinLondon.Topic:TheFarmers’MarketRules
Orangefarmerscalloneoftheirearliest-ripeningvarietiesPineapples.But,inthedaysafterHurricaneCharleytorethr
JuniperNetworkssaidthatwhichYahooBrasilhasdeployedits【S1】______M-seriesrouterstolayoffthegroundworkfor
随机试题
白喉棒状杆菌为革兰染色阴性菌。()
职业道德规范是指约定俗成的或明文规定的职业道德标准。
患者女,22岁。出现泌尿系统感染症状,但常规尿细菌培养为阴性,进行尿液厌氧菌培养应如何采集标本
患儿,4岁。1月前曾出现发热、紫癜。现时有低热,紫癜时发时止,下肢为多,伴盗汗、手足心热,舌红少津,脉细数。选方为
纤维蛋白性心包炎的主要症状是
甲房产公司在开发“玫瑰园”小区时与相邻的学校乙达成协议,乙20年内不得在校内兴建10层以上的建筑物,甲一次性支付1000万元作为补偿。但双方一直未办理登记手续。“玫瑰园”开盘后很快销售一空。几年后,乙因招生规模扩大,为改善教学条件,在校内开工建造一栋15层
下列表述哪些是正确的?()
我国资产评估发展伊始,其主要目的是基于()。
非实质性超限,因技术性或操作性原因导致系统提示超限,包括但不限于()。
通过信息工作的()程序可以保证信息的完整性和系统性。
最新回复
(
0
)