Reptiles at Risk

Some Stormy Teamwork

Posted by Jeff Hathaway on July 18, 2006 at 11:14 AM

Monday morning was not destined to be the beautiful send off that we imagined. We awoke to a dark sky, with thunder in the distance.

Everyone got moving and we tried to pack up before the storm hit. We managed to get most things away in a much less organized manner than we had hoped, however the rain caught us before we could finish taking down the trailer and loading some things. We got soaked but didn't care too much, and set off after good bye hugs.

We didn't get very far. The storm brought down trees along the park road. Graham, Amanda, and Jenny were in the lead and managed to drag the first two jack pines off the road so we could get past. Triumph we thought, until around the next bend there were three more, all of which were much larger! No way to drag these away! Jenny quickly turned around and went to find the park maintenance staff we'd passed near the campground area. We got our little hand saw out of the tool box (good thing we got that at Home Depot to build the van shelves!) and Graham began cutting the first tree while Megan, Crystal and I sized up the other two. A photo of these trees across the road is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scisnake/194937416/

After Graham cut through it, the girls dragged it away and Graham started on the next, which was the biggest one, at least thirty centimetres in diameter. Meanwhile, I tied a rope around the end of it, and had Crystal bring the van up to hook up the other end. Once Graham was halfway through, we backed up the van to snap the tree off and we dragged the top half clear. Jenny was back by then with the maintenance staff, but they didnt have a chainsaw so luckily we hadn't waited for them! With just the third tree remaining, and more pople, we cut off the thin top that was hung up on another tree on the opposite side of the road, and then all of us managed to push the trunk out of the way. Progress once more!

And off we went, only to find two more small trees which were quickly moved, and then one final tree, which we actually just drove over! By now, we figured we'd be late for our program at the Timmins YMCA, so we stopped at the gatehouse to call them, only to discover that their power was out and the phones were having trouble. We did manage to call them from th road, and despite all the trouble, we were only twenty minutes late starting the program!

The rest of the day was uneventful by comparison - a relaxing drive across to Wawa, a little food shopping, a photo stop at the big goose, and arrival at White Lake Provincial Park. Good thing we hadn't been here in the morning! They'd managed to clear their road by mid-day, but we saw lots of piles of wood and halfcut trees. The same storm system apparently produced a minor microburst here that blew down lots of trees!

All in all, quite a day, but I was most impressed by the quickness and resourcefullness of our staff to surmount the challenges.