The silence replaces the clucking of hundreds of thousands of chickens and turkeys who, just days before, occupied the barns that are now submerged under rust-brown, feces-strewn water in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, which devastated the state of North Carolina.

The air burns the eyes of photojournalist Jo-Anne McArthur, who steers the boat.

“We’ve seen thousands of bodies floating in fields and caught in fences,” recalls McArthur, founder of We Animals, which chronicles the plight of animals on all seven continents. “I tried, but could not fathom, the terrifying deaths these individuals endured as the waters rose inside the sheds where they were trapped.”

Florence’s downfall came just a month after Farm Sanctuary’s Hoedown, where McArthur connected with North Carolina Waterkeeper Alliance Senior Advisor Rick Dove, who pioneered the use of aircraft to document sources of pollution.

“When the news of Hurricane Florence hit the airways, Jo-Anne contacted me about coming to cover the impacts of this storm,” Dove recalls. “I took her on a flight over the devastated landscape of eastern North Carolina, where swine and poultry waste was flowing down our rivers along with dead animals.”

Dove has witnessed this type of devastation many times before. In 1999, at least one million chickens and turkeys and 21,000 pigs perished in the floodwaters of Hurricane Floyd, and local water supplies were polluted by the overflowing of massive waste “lagoons” filled with animal excrement.

After Floyd, North Carolina State environmental officials made some effort toward preventing another disaster of this magnitude, buying out 43 pig operations located in the floodplain, removing more than 100 waste lagoons, and relocating other lagoons to higher ground. But the remaining lagoons proved to be just as susceptible to failure in a large storm.

In October of 2016, Hurricane Matthew brought devastating flooding to eastern North Carolina, killing nearly two million chickens and 2,800 pigs and flooding 14 lagoons. According to Duke University researchers, this flooding causes severe health problems — higher rates of infant mortality, kidney disease, tuberculosis, and septicemia, to name a few — for local communities.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Florence may be the most horrific yet. At press time, the number of factory-farmed animals drowned had already topped that of Hurricane Matthew; 33 manure lagoons overflowed, with more on the brink of overflowing into local rivers and groundwater.

Why has the cycle of storm flooding and waste overflow been stuck on a loop? Like the slurry, the waste lagoons contain, it’s the result of a toxic mixture: a state legislature tied to factory farming, and an industry that values profits over human and animal lives. Legislators have pushed through environmental-rule exemptions, caps on nuisance lawsuits, and other passed pro-industry laws.

Farm Sanctuary and other organizations must continue pressing lawmakers in the state to change policies, and engage and activate the communities so that their concerns and anger are heard. Without an organized effort, it is only a matter of time before we witness another heartbreaking disaster.

In October, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service announced that they will continue the N.C. Swine Floodplain Buyout Program for pig-farming operations within North Carolina’s 100-year floodplain. Created in 1999, the program has invested more than $18 million to successfully buy out 43 operations. Participation in the buyout requires forfeiting the facility’s permit and/or waste-management-plan certification, meaning the owner cannot relocate the facility and continue raising pigs as an existing operation. This effectively opens the door to other forms of agriculture — like planting crops.

According to campaign-finance records compiled by IndyWeek, publishers of the three-part investigative “Hogwashed” series,