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BlueRanger
07-28-2010, 11:17 AM
Just out - Springstead, Fishermans and Murrays closed until further notice, visitors advised to stay away to avoid interfering with rescue and cleanup crews.

http://www.fdlreporter.com/article/20100728/FON0101/100728049/Turtle-Flambeau-Flowage-area-damaged-by-thunderstorms

ski2313
07-28-2010, 11:35 AM
sonofa.....*beeeeeeeep*

Shoot me a text if you hear otherwise... in the meantime I'm figuring out a plan B.

badgrblair
07-28-2010, 12:02 PM
We have a place on Lake Bastine, over by Donners Bay. We experienced extreme straight line winds last night that took out dozens of trees. The road was impassible, and my wife and kids actually had to get to the cabin via boat.

Friends staying on the other side of the bay at Cry of the Loon had no damage.

We have no power right now, and 2 trees down in the yard. One fell almost exactly between the garage and house. Five feet either way and I'd be calling a contractor. We are blessed...

KJGMH
07-28-2010, 12:03 PM
I heard from my Grandparents who live on the end of Shinebecks Point that they have 80% of the trees either broken off or uprooted by thier house. Holes in the roof, one vehicle damaged and pontoon damaged. Road from by Springstead landing out to the point has LOTS of trees down.

I hope all the campers are ok... must have been pretty scary to be on an island when it came through.

john brennan
07-28-2010, 12:34 PM
Lots of damage from Springstead landing to Fishermans. My wife and kids are up there and have sent some pictures. Mostly trees down and some damage to house and garage. Power probably won't be restored for a good week crews are saying. The entire point was hit pretty hard. Boats were floating around..one with the pier still attached to it. Looks like weather will cooperate with clean up efforts. Town of Springstead has power.

john brennan
07-28-2010, 12:36 PM
Should have rotated pics before uploading

lund1700
07-28-2010, 12:46 PM
We spent 6 days on the TFF and cut it short yesterday. Saw the weather, tore down camp (D22) and headed to Springstead with black sky's to our back. Looks like we got out just in time.

Hope everyone is ok out there!

badgrblair
07-28-2010, 01:09 PM
Here's a report from the Lakeland Times. (http://www.lakelandtimes.com/main.asp?SectionID=9&SubSectionID=9&ArticleID=11684)

marmaduke
07-28-2010, 01:11 PM
We are planning to come up for our week of vacation on Friday, any updates would be greatly appreciated such as if there is power and accessability to the house. It is on Kein rd just up from Fishermans landing right on the flowage. What a BUMMER!!!! Nothing we can do though, hope everyone is alright!!

luv2brw
07-28-2010, 01:28 PM
Marmaduke:

My place is on Kein Road too, my sister is there now and said that road is clear and there is no damage. The power is on.

marmaduke
07-28-2010, 01:32 PM
That is good news about the power being on, thank you for the update and hope to see you up there!! :)
Ryan

marmaduke
07-28-2010, 01:33 PM
Marmaduke:

My place is on Kein Road too, my sister is there now and said that road is clear and there is no damage. The power is on.


Is this Brad by chance?

Tom502
07-28-2010, 01:51 PM
Lots of damage on the Springstead side of the TFF. My place is near Springstead landing & I had 40-50 trees down and some serious damage to my house and a detached garage. Looks like no power for 3-4 days at minimum.

Springstead, Fishermans & Murray's landings are all closed right now.

Lots of damage on the islands as well as along main shorelines.

Tight Lines,

Tom502

ski2313
07-28-2010, 02:00 PM
wow, sorry to hear that Tom... that looks like a mess.. are the roads open up to your place?

luv2brw
07-28-2010, 02:11 PM
Marmaduke-

Yes, I'm Brad.

marmaduke
07-28-2010, 02:24 PM
Marmaduke-

Yes, I'm Brad.

Thanks Brad, this is Steve Piotrowski's brother in law. Hope to see you up there!! :)

luv2brw
07-28-2010, 02:42 PM
Thanks Brad, this is Steve Piotrowski's brother in law. Hope to see you up there!!

Missed you this year - we were up from June 30th until July 18th. I won't be back up until October.

Mark Benson
07-28-2010, 02:55 PM
Tom:

You need help cleaning up???

Mark

Tom502
07-28-2010, 03:01 PM
Mark -

Appreciate the offer but I have had a crew in here for the past 4-5 hours and things are looking much better than this morning.

Tight Lines,

Tom502

marmaduke
07-28-2010, 03:11 PM
Thanks Brad, this is Steve Piotrowski's brother in law. Hope to see you up there!!

Missed you this year - we were up from June 30th until July 18th. I won't be back up until October.

Bummer, i will be up with Steve in October for a little fall fishing (drinking) hope to see you then!!

Ryan

Zeke
07-28-2010, 05:06 PM
I just got back from my Lake Bastien place a bit ago. Turtle Flambeau Dam road and Sportsmans landing are open, no power expected until tomorrow. My friends place at the Lake Bastien condo was crushed by a huge maple. No injuries at this location but some mighty shakey people today. One of the log cabins had 5 trees on it. The people had to break a window to get out. Amazingly the trees must have teepeed so they did not flatten the cabin. Ft Flambeau had tons of trees down. Many of the tops are nowhere to be found. When you come in from the south there is no sign of damage until about 1 mile from the turn off to Turtle Dam rd.

teenfisher
07-28-2010, 06:31 PM
sorry to hear about your place tom. zeke, luv2brw, lund1700 and badgrblair how was the fishing? i'll be coming up north soon hopefully to fish.

BlueRanger
07-28-2010, 06:45 PM
More news:

http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20100728/WDH0101/100728148/Storm-closes-Turtle-Flambeau-Flowage-camping

My parents drove up today, and it sounds like most of our trees came down but missed the house and garage. Some shingles were torn off, the dock is upside down and we'll be busy with the chainsaws for a while, but it sounds like we were very fortunate compared to some of the neighbors. Not looking forward to seeing it.

Don Pemble
07-28-2010, 08:28 PM
Hey Blue,

Had a trip today and went by your place, you are very lucky compared to all the damage that I witnessed. I didn't get up to Ft. Flambeau or Donner's Bay where there was an awful lot of damage and trees down, but the camp sites from the east side of Big Island along with all of Long Island, all islands in the Baraboo area continuing east to C-5, C-11 into the shortcut into Horseshoe and all the campsites and islands there have received extensive damage, try to remember Pine Island in Horseshoe as it was, it is just about bare of the big pines, it makes a tear come to your eye about all the beauty that has been taken away from all of us by one big storm, not to mention the people that were injured, we pray for them.

KAT
07-29-2010, 07:20 AM
Fisherman's Landing is open to boats but all camping is closed until further notice

BlueRanger
07-29-2010, 10:10 AM
Some of the news reports said one woman had to be airlifted and was in critical condition... Everything else can be repaired, replaced and cleaned up, and the trees will grow back, but let's hope that those who were injured will make a full recovery and can come back and enjoy many better days on the TFF.

Lips
07-29-2010, 10:14 AM
As a long time camper who was just on C12 two weeks ago, I am thankful there weren't more injured campers and pray for those that were. We have endured some terrible storms in 25+ years of camping there but this certainly tops them all. Our group cares deeply about the TFF and I truly appreciate the reports that all of you have been sending. Please keep them coming. To those of you with property there, I'm sorry for your losses. Tom502 says things are looking better and it will get better for you all. My best wishes and again, please keep the reports coming on a special place we all care deeply about.

LundAngler
07-29-2010, 10:47 AM
Tom502 and Blue, I'm sorry to hear that your places were hit. Hopefully the cleanup is going OK. I was watching a report on WAOW out of Wausau, and they showed a huge tree that had landed on top of one of the campers' tents. After seeing that, I'm really surprised someone wasn't killed....it must have been divine intervention. I agree with Blue, everything other than human life can be replaced. The trees will just take some time.

Lips
07-29-2010, 11:55 AM
or will you need to change your name?

TFF Rook
07-29-2010, 12:07 PM
http://www.wjfw.com/stories.html?sku=20100728203325

Local news station report on the tornado or 'wind event'.

Click on the picture on the right side of the screen titled "People speak out about storm damage"

BlueRanger
07-29-2010, 01:19 PM
But it was safe in the garage, which escaped serious damage.

dinged prop
07-29-2010, 06:22 PM
I would like to know when anybody knows as soon as the camp sites are open again. I am really sorry about any damage that was done to people or property there and hope everybody gets back on their feet again physically and financially. My wife and had a loss this year also, our 26 year old son died in April. We were hoping to come up the 11th thru the 15th since we had been coming up since he was about 4 years old. would appreciate any info as to when the camp sites may be open again

Flambeau Vista Retreat LLC
07-29-2010, 07:19 PM
The National Weather Service has confirmed that a tornado hit the TFF on Tuesday evening. The story is on www.WJFW.com

The South and East sides of the Lake Bastine area were hit hard. Our cabins are OK other than a window blown out of the FV1 screen porch. We had 2 large pines uprooted and land on our neighbors garage.

Other cabins were not as lucky. Cabins at the Lake Bastine Cond Assoc. were hit hard by falling trees and debris. The Fort Flambeau area was also hit hard with most of their trees leveled, some on top of cabins and vehicles. Donners Bay had a tree go through the roof of their residence, but they are open and operating.

We understand that most of the trees on Long Island and Swimmers Island have been leveled.

On a lighter note, we found the head of our plastic dock owl bobbing on our shoreline. Its body was nowhere to be found. I guess you had to be there, but amid all the devestation, it brought a smile to our faces.

Hang in there everyone. Things will get better. We got power back this afternoon.

www.flambeauvista.com

Midwest Sportsman
07-29-2010, 10:38 PM
We just came home from Lake Bastine on Saturday. Wow, unreal. Our prayers are with everyone who was injured and hope for a quick recovery for those who were affected by the storm.

Nick Kanauz
07-31-2010, 02:57 AM
Blue...Was it some kind of kismit that you posted your tour of the Flowage just a few weeks ago? At least your pictorial survives to allow others to know what the damaged portions of the Flowage actually looked like before Ma Nature did her thing. Thanks for the hard work and the post of your work!

Hot Runr Guy
07-31-2010, 07:59 AM
I would like to know when anybody knows as soon as the camp sites are open again. I am really sorry about any damage that was done to people or property there and hope everybody gets back on their feet again physically and financially. My wife and had a loss this year also, our 26 year old son died in April. We were hoping to come up the 11th thru the 15th since we had been coming up since he was about 4 years old. would appreciate any info as to when the camp sites may be open again

looks like Monday http://dnr.wi.gov/news/BreakingNews_Lookup.asp?id=1778

HRG

Hot Runr Guy
07-31-2010, 09:50 AM
I was just sent this link, sroll down to see the TFF tornado path & pics.
HRG
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dlh/?n=jul272010_tornadoes

SLEDHEAD
07-31-2010, 11:24 AM
here are some pics from our cabin on Bastine right down from Flambeau Vista.

camper1
07-31-2010, 02:51 PM
Good to hear some of the sites survived and will reopen Monday. We are also planning on going up the August 13/14th weekend, hope more sites are open by then. Sounds like the firewood problem is solved, just bring a handsaw. Dinged prop - sorry to hear of your loss, the 5 of us going are just a few years older than your son was, and I bet he loved it up there as much as we do. Hope you have a great weekend. Should be interesting to see some of the big changes with the tornado.

netteb16
07-31-2010, 03:10 PM
My father was staying in a cabin close to Bastine, just west of the big island when the storm/tornado came through...I don't think the pictures posted do the storm justice...

entire islands are changed, massive damage, capsized boats...quite incredible...

BlueRanger
08-01-2010, 05:13 PM
Just got home after a couple days of cleanup. I got up there Thursday night - my parents had driven up the day before and spent all day just clearing the driveway. I fired up the chainsaw Friday morning at 6:00 AM, and by the end of the day, with the help of our next door neighbors and their huge crew of family and friends and an ATV and trailer borrowed from another neighbor down the road, we had removed most of the trees from the two yards and piled them along the road. We left a few big ones for the professionals, and there's still quite a bit to be done on the point, but I did manage to thread the trailer through the brush piles and get out on the water for a few hours Saturday evening to take pictures of some of the damaged campsites and islands.

Trying to look on the bright side, the worst areas are absolutely devastated, but the damage is somewhat confined - in some spots you can look at one shoreline and everything is flattened, but when you turn around the opposite shoreline looks just fine. Driving up Flowage Road, you don't really start to see the damage until you get near Springstead Landing. And after seeing some of the campsites and homes that suffered the most damage, it's a miracle that there weren't more injuries. I also didn't see as much debris floating in the water as I expected, and in several areas many of the downed trees fell along steep shorelines where they should provide good fish habitat for years to come.

Water is just about at full pool, -0.1 feet according to the Springstead Landing gauge. Surface temperature is at 76 degrees and the water is very stained but not unusually turbid, with visibility at about 2 feet on my completely unscientific orange bucktail scale. Thanks to the low water earlier in the season, I saw weeds reaching the surface in as much as 12' of water, something I've never seen before. It creates an interesting question - target the usual depths, or the usual spots? I wasn't out long enough to answer that one, but I did fish for a couple hours and managed to land a northern and a nice smallie on a bucktail.

Quality on some of this batch isn't up to my usual standards - I was experimenting with in-camera contrast settings and didn't like the results.

http://picasaweb.google.com/BlueRangerTFF/20100729TFFTornadoAftermath#

George G
08-02-2010, 08:05 AM
Got up to my shack on the Roddis LIne Rd. Maybe 2 miles north on the Roddis line you come to an area that has massive dammage, big thanks to the Town of Agenda for once again opening the road. It is an area of about 1 mile long where the tornado came through, lots of damage. Nothing after that one mile stretch of road. Just looking at it I thought it was a tornado . Well defined line of damage. Time moves on. Sorry to hear about the damage to Porkys home at Donners Bay. I am sure he has resources to get it fixed ASAP. Nice report from Flambeau Vista, thanks.

The Tiny Fisherman
08-02-2010, 08:35 AM
Well it looks like we'll have to have a new roof and structural damage too (four trees on it). There is about a dozen trees down on our property. Our 200 amp service was ripped off the building. Fluffy is missing most of her lawn ordainments. Canopy cover for the boat lift is taters, screen tent is shot, large lawn swing is crushed, TV antenna is broke in half, too numerous to name it all. Been cleaning up down trees for four days and we're only a quarter through. Had lots of family and friends helping.

I want to thank all of you for your help,

Lips
08-02-2010, 10:00 AM
It refreshed my feeble memory that we camped on C6 a few weeks back and not C12. Wouldn't have enjoyed either site during that storm!
Lips

Mark Benson
08-02-2010, 10:05 AM
Tiny:

Offered before will offer again, you need any chain saw help??? PM me if you like...

Mark

muskeye
08-02-2010, 01:22 PM
While cruising around on the tff yesterday I stopped at sites c15, d33, c17, c8, and b2 which were all pretty much trashed with fallen or uprooted trees. I think c8 was probably the worst. I am curious to know what will be done with sites that are in this condition? Are professionals coming in to handle it or can someone be contacted to find out if assistance is needed? I would be glad to help out on my favorite body of water.

lund1700
08-02-2010, 01:23 PM
The Sites that are open or closed are listed.

http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/facilities/turtleflambeau/

ol'wildcat
08-02-2010, 02:09 PM
Does anyone know if Mark Uebelher's cottage is OK?

t Nash

Bobber Down
08-04-2010, 10:48 AM
Does anyone have photos of the destroyed campsites they can post? I always planned to duck under a picnic table is things got nasty. One of the early reports mentioned some of those were damaged too. Just wondering how bad they are.

sbarick
08-04-2010, 10:23 PM
does anyone know about the stand of pines along the trail between fishermans landing and the bog around the corner from it? i proposed to my wife in those trees 6 years ago and wondered if they are still standing. we were also camped at c8 that year, which sounds like the hardest hit site. we love it up there and understand things always change, considering that this change is a very drastic one. i envy all you guys that live or have a place up there, no matter how damaged, never take it for granted.

Larrynrita
08-05-2010, 09:41 PM
Hi all, per a recent request...attached is a first hand pic of how the table at C11 saved 4 of our lives... I just got out of St. Joe's hospital and am very happy to "only" be recovering from a fractured pelvis. I can't say enough about the quick response of the rescue crews that got to us within 45 minutes - I thought it would be hours - and got us over to Minocqua. My wife had a heart attack after we got there and probably would have not made it if we hadn't been at the ER already. We have a lot of people to thank, and intend to do so profusely.

I have a disk of pics and clips that our friends made while cleaning up the site on Wednesday, and I'll post some when I'm able.

Hope everyone out there is doing well with their recoveries and property damage.

Larrynrita

camper1
08-06-2010, 12:00 PM
That's a gripping pic Larrynrita. Glad to hear you're going to make a recovery. I weathered a severe thunderstorm on C13 two years ago. We didn't even bother to check the weather radio when it started getting nasty. Guess I was lucky it wasn't anymore than a windy/rainy thunderstorm. My friends had gone to the launch to meet a couple others who had just arrived when it got bad. They weathered the storm in the truck and I took shelter in the tent. My buddy's dog took off and must have found a dry place under a pine :) Other than spending most of Saturday drying things out by the fire, we were fine.

I'm going to be investing in a weather radio before our trip next week. Can anyone confirm how bad the damage is on Long Island...specifically to C13? Also with all the rain is there any beach exposed at Swimmer's Island? Never been there when it's been anywhere near full pool.

muskeye
08-06-2010, 12:21 PM
I have pictures of each site by long island except for c13, that one didn't look bad from a distance. I am unable to upload the pictures from my phone but can email them to someone to post if they want??

john brennan
08-06-2010, 11:11 PM
first pic is what is left of pine island over in horseshoe. The campground pics are over in the chanel by horseshoe. They are destroyed. The patch of trees over by fishermans is pretty much ok. The campsites over between hotdog island and dollar island are wiped out. Swimmers looks fine but water is very high..can't see sand. Lots of trouble navigating around because it all looks different now. Many islands are simply just a few trees left on them and really look like they were mowed over with trees just snapped off and laying in the water..can you say fish cribs in 2 years? Good to hear campers doing better. Wow..what a picture. Cleanup doing better in springstead area with owners getting used to seeing the destruction. First couple days spent just being numb to it all. On a brighter note, fishing is great. Walleye and smallmouth being caught..with empty bellies. Go figure. Getting down into the 40's tonight..feels great. Other picture taken from news station, but not sure how accurate. Also, horseshoe bog split in two. One half floated into the back bay there and the other half floated back toward end of flowage by big rocks. WOW. 11037

11034

11035

11036

camper1
08-07-2010, 09:21 AM
Here are Muskyeye's photos:

http://tinypic.com/r/2j17ukm/4
B2

http://i36.tinypic.com/5nrv53.jpg
B2 site - There are 3 uprooted trees near the big firepit.

http://i37.tinypic.com/2m3ljdy.jpg
C8

http://i34.tinypic.com/dvnjnl.jpg
C12 southern tip of the island this site is on, site might be further to the left than what the picture shows.

http://i36.tinypic.com/deqmx1.jpg
C15 is in the channel by long island- it is on the east side of the island.

http://i37.tinypic.com/11vl64g.jpg
C16 is the site on the southern part of long island.

http://i37.tinypic.com/aac878.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/15s27q0.jpg

C17 is the site as the exit the channel heading towards big island. West side of long island.

http://i35.tinypic.com/ibvoz9.jpg
Channel is looking through the channel on long island facing west.

Bobber Down
08-09-2010, 06:44 AM
Larrynrita glad you made it throught the storm. I wish you and anyone else injured a speedy recovery! Thanks to Blue Ranger for the photos he posted too. Pretty amazing stuff!

Larrynrita
08-10-2010, 03:54 PM
Thanks all for the good wishes. We drove out to the Springstead landing Sun nite, and were amazed at the damages. We really felt bad for everyone that got hit so hard, it was unsettling to us! Attached are pics of C11 the day after, we had 4 people and a 50-lb dog under and around one side of the table.... here's a quick recap of the long nite-

We were at the landing for an ice run about 5:30, and I had been watching the approaching front all day via a cell phone app (Garmin Mycast), and debated staying in from camp. I looked at the storm track coming and knew we'd get hit by something, but thought the worst of it would track just north of us. (Note: based on my forecasting ability, I will be keeping my day job!)

At 6:30 we were back at C11 preparing our wedding anniversary dinner... looked at the radar again and saw what was coming. We had never talked to the couple on the point at C5, so I went over and introduced myself and told them there was nasty stuff coming in about an hour. Nice folks, Mark and Gay from southern WI. The did not have any type of radio and had not heard a forecast. As C5 is very exposed to a west and south wind, we told them to come over by us if it got bad.

After dinner, we battened down the camp and boat while listening to the endless loops on the weather radio about chance of severe storms, tornado warning, etc. We preplanned that first shelter choice would be the picnic table, and had two alternate low spots in the ground as backups. I turned the radio back on again at about 7:30 and heard the specific warning about the storm about to hit the TFF in 5 minutes, and to take cover immediately. I ran over to C5 to warn them, then back to our camp to and started putting a big tarpthrough the downwind side of the picnic table, and it went from sunny and calm to blasting winds in seconds, along with the rain. Mark and Gay came running over from C5, we got the women well under the table, while Mark and I pushed as far under as we could... The tarp was like the a big taco with me at the open end, I was on my side trying to tuck under seat of the table. People talk about the roar of a tornado, there's no way to describe it until you're there. I remember watching a 16" red pine twist about 12' feet up and explode, and then the top 40 feet of the tree remain vertical and just float away. One second there were leaves on the trees, and the next second there were almost none on the ones that were still standing.

Trees started coming down all around us, and dog tried to run away, but we held her in place. To paraphrase the old WWII saying about foxholes, I can personally attest there are no atheists under the tables at the flowage! My butt was hanging out the side of the table, and the pine that came down and clipped off the corner of the table pinned me so I couldn't move. Moments later, the two other red pines came down over the top of the table causing a panic, but they also shifted the tree pinning me slightly so I could roll onto my belly and scoot forward a couple of inches and pull clear. I remember looking at my watch and it was 7:42 pm, and a million thoughts went through my head, of things like all the other campers with kids out there hoping they were OK, and that it would take hours to get everyone out.

The high winds finally died down, and then the lightening and heavy rain set in for the next 20 minutes... we joked the the lightning had nothing to hit, all the trees were gone. Finally, at about 8:00, the other 3 in our crew climbed out from under the table, saying "whew, we're OK", to which I replied...."ummmm, we need to call 911, I can't move!". They called in, then got more blankets and tarps to put over me, as there was about 2" of water under the table. We could hear sirens to the north up towards Fisherman's landing, but I still though it would take hours. About a half an hour later someone hollered "they're here", but I didn't believe it until I saw a work boot and reflective EMT pants sticking down through the brush around me.

The lowered down a back board and I crawled on, and after they strapped me in, the 3 of them scooted me over the fallen treetops and finally down to the pontoon. Mark and Gay, our newfound friends, volunteered to keep our dog while Rita and I went on. In the dark the way to Fisherman's, we hit something, and the front end of the pontoon went underwater, waterboarding me! That's one way to was the dirt off! At the landing, we had to wait offshore while someone that was hurt worse was put on an ambulance. The ambulance trip to Woodruff was long and bouncy.

The ER was like a scene from MASH; while I was getting x-rays and a CAT scan, Rita was checking me in, and someone noticed she had bad cuts on her legs. After bandaging those up, she commented she felt light headed, so they ran an EKG, which came back normal. The ER nurse wouldn't give up, and blood work showed that she was about to hit cardiac arrest, so Rita got bumped to higher priority than me. The considered flying her out right away, but she stabilized and we both ended up being hauled by ambulance to St. Joseph's in Marshfield. I was in for a week with a fractured pelvis, and Rita has an underlying heart condition that this event brought to light we'll be working on forever.

We are thankful for a lot of things, not the least of which our that we're alive, the fact that God has to have been watching over us, the unbelievably fast response time of the rescue crew, and the folks at Howard Young Med Center and St. Joseph's hospital, and the TFF staff for checking in on us! We're gonna be OK!

Hope everyone else continues to do well and recover and repair! Sorry this got a little long, but there is some healing and writing it! See you on the water - next year!

Larrynrita

lund1700
08-11-2010, 08:27 AM
Larrynrita, Thanks for posting your story - quite the experience! Glad everything turned out as good as it did. God put that picnic table there, and the others involved for a reason - He want's you around for a while.

We were fortunate enough to have pulled out of camp on that Tuesday with the black sky to our back. Take care of each other!

sbarick
08-11-2010, 10:08 PM
what an awesome story! the wife and i were there 2 weeks prior and i love extreme weather but the last place u want to experience it is on vacation and/or on an island. hope everyone is well and the TFF will recover and give us all great memories to come!

TFF Rook
08-12-2010, 10:05 AM
Wow, quite an account, especially sobering with the pictures. Glad that you and your wife survived to tell the story!! Having camped in that exact spot with my wife and dog, I got chills as I read it. What an experience...

LundAngler
08-13-2010, 09:08 AM
Wow! That is a story you will be telling your grandchildren! I'm glad to hear things are slowly improving for you and others....as they say "time heals all wounds." I'm headed up Sat night for a little fishing on Sun.....to be honest, for the first time, I'm not looking forward to seeing the TFF.

LundAngler
08-15-2010, 10:17 PM
I was out on the water today. I put in at fisherman's landing, and at first glance things didn't look all that bad. There were a few trees down here and there, but overall, I thought to myself "I thought it would be worse than this."

Then I started heading toward the dam. The West end of Long Island told a totally different story....it was destroyed! C12 is also pretty much destroyed. Many other sites in that area are just flattened. Really sad. I shot a crude video on my cell phone, which I hope to post soon.

We then headed over toward Springstead landing and saw several homes that took some pretty serious abuse. Went over toward Horseshoe and those areas were hit pretty hard as well. I'm sure that it will take a long time to clean it all up, but mother nature will eventually repair herself.

As for the fishing, the weather was perfect for walleye fishing...cool and overcast with a good chop on the water, wind WNW @ 15mph. The fishing on the other hand was a little on the slow side. 4 walleyes in 5 hours...and only one real keeper at that. Everything on crawlers.

Larrynrita
08-16-2010, 08:53 AM
I agree with Lundangler, the pics do not do justice to the extent of the devastation. Some friends took us out for a tour on their pontoon boat yesterday, and going back to C11 it was hard for us to see it all again.

Since fishing is out for the moment, I put a couple of albums in our public profile that have additional pics of the tornado aftermath, as well as an album from the fun times. Thanks for everyone's well wishes, now I'll go back to enjoying the posts about catching fish!

Larrynrita

George
08-16-2010, 01:44 PM
What a nice picture of the luckiest people on the planet! Glad to see the smiles!

marmaduke
08-16-2010, 03:34 PM
HOLY COW!!! That had to be the scariest moment of your lives, i am glad you are alright, i was up there the Friday after the storm and we stopped at your camp sight and i couldnt believe the devastation. God was certainly watching over you and your family and friends. I hope you all heal up and still are able to enjoy the area. I bet your dog was happy to see you when you returned as well!! :) Thank you for sharing the incredible story.

Ryan