Thinking of those camping out in Itasca State Park and Bemidji State Park in Minnesota. News around here says they were hit by pretty nasty thunderstorms, lots of trees down, no power, etc. Just left Itasca on Sunday! Two of our favorite campgrounds to go to. Anyone know how extensive the damage is? Hopefully no injuries!
~Em & Mike
Baby O
2013 Outback 250RS
2012 Keystone Premier 31BHPR
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<2012 many many years of tenting it!
I left Bemidji on Sunday, pray they are all okay. My scanner went off 4 times last night. Twice it was to report that the town of Bemidji was under curfew till this morning.
DH - Bear
DW - Marge
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Molly - English Springer Spaniel Puppy
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We are here at Itasca and weathered the storm by the grace of God. We are here in the Bear Paw CG and there must be at least 30 huge trees down in our cg alone. I've heard the Pine Ridge cg got it much worse. Power was out from about 6:45pm until about 3:00am this morning. Power is still out for many of the surrounding areas from what I can tell.
We were on the lake when we saw the storm rolling in... it didn't seem like anything but a rain shower storm, nothing menacing about it. We got back to our camper just as it started to rain. Within the space of a few minutes the wind whipped up and was gusting like crazy. We managed to get our awning rolled up and huddled inside. I'd say in a space of less than 10 minutes the worst was over.
Our neighbor got a tree across the hood of his truck. He is trying to patch it up to leave today. We had a huge limb fall on the far side of our picnic table. A couple sites up the road, a tree that must have a 5 foot diameter fell across a gazebo and picnic table of a tent site. The tent was unharmed and the tenters were in their vehicle.
All around the cg there is damage. Vehicles with windows broken out, a TT with the awning tore off because of a tree landing on it, another TT that lost all his skylights, his antenna and awning. A pop up with the entire rear bunk tore off.
None of the campground buildings (most built by the CCC) seem to have sustained any major damage (I can only speak for Bear Paw CG, haven't been to any other areas of the park).
For quite a while last night the roads were blocked by fallen trees but the crews have been working and have cleared them so they are passable. It's still a mess, though.
I have not heard of any injuries in our loop (we made the rounds to offer help where needed) but in the other loop I did see an ambulance. I hope no one was hurt.
Bemidji took a hit from the storm, as well as our relatives over on Lake Winnibigoshish, many trees down and power still out.
minn camping family wrote: We are here at Itasca and weathered the storm by the grace of God. We are here in the Bear Paw CG and there must be at least 30 huge trees down in our cg alone. I've heard the Pine Ridge cg got it much worse. Power was out from about 6:45pm until about 3:00am this morning. Power is still out for many of the surrounding areas from what I can tell.
We were on the lake when we saw the storm rolling in... it didn't seem like anything but a rain shower storm, nothing menacing about it. We got back to our camper just as it started to rain. Within the space of a few minutes the wind whipped up and was gusting like crazy. We managed to get our awning rolled up and huddled inside. I'd say in a space of less than 10 minutes the worst was over.
Our neighbor got a tree across the hood of his truck. He is trying to patch it up to leave today. We had a huge limb fall on the far side of our picnic table. A couple sites up the road, a tree that must have a 5 foot diameter fell across a gazebo and picnic table of a tent site. The tent was unharmed and the tenters were in their vehicle.
All around the cg there is damage. Vehicles with windows broken out, a TT with the awning tore off because of a tree landing on it, another TT that lost all his skylights, his antenna and awning. A pop up with the entire rear bunk tore off.
None of the campground buildings (most built by the CCC) seem to have sustained any major damage (I can only speak for Bear Paw CG, haven't been to any other areas of the park).
For quite a while last night the roads were blocked by fallen trees but the crews have been working and have cleared them so they are passable. It's still a mess, though.
I have not heard of any injuries in our loop (we made the rounds to offer help where needed) but in the other loop I did see an ambulance. I hope no one was hurt.
Bemidji took a hit from the storm, as well as our relatives over on Lake Winnibigoshish, many trees down and power still out.
Glad to hear that while lots of damage, it sounds like not many (if any) were injured. Scary to think we were JUST THERE, and could have easily been in this mess too with our infant son. We heard a couple good rumbles of thunder Saturday night there and it always makes my heart beat a bit faster not knowing whats rolling in for sure. Hope you and everyone makes it out safe and is able to enjoy what's left of your trip!
Got a call to day telling us our reservations have been canceled for August at the Chippawa National Forest. The campgrounds are closed for the rest of the year do to storm damage. The rest of the camping season maybe short.
Because of this storm, La Salle Lake State Recreation Area is closed indefinitely and reservations are cancelled through July 11.
Itasca is cg's are open but according to the DNR day visitors are being discouraged while they are cleaning up the fallen trees.
Not due to this storm, but because of the flooding earlier this summer, I just read that Jay Cooke is "closed indefinitely, with all reservations through October 31 automatically cancelled and refunded."
Minn camping family - we were up at Itasca the same time as you. We just got back on Sunday. We were in the storm as well. A very quick one, but it sure did a lot of damage. We were in Pine Ridge Campground. A very large tree fell parallel to our camper. Very scary. I posted pictures on my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/#!/shelly.koesterathmann
The people camping next to us had a tree fall on their van and a young family had their truck totalled by a tree while they were sitting in it. They were pretty shaken up. No injuries, but a man had a heart attack the next morning and the ambulance was there to get him to the hospital.
We met folks that had reservations at DelaSalle Campground and were given a spot at Itasca. They weren't letting anyone in to camp that didn't have a reservation and people were moving sites all over to accomodate the changes.
We were very impressed with how fast the crews came around to clean up the fallen trees. The campground entries were all blocked after the storm and within 2 hours they were open.
While Jay Cooke did have some damage the swinging bridge was washed away the campground and most of the park are ok but the Road going to the park was washed out the same time Duluth was hit with all the flash floods.
Wildcat
Wildcat63
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Hi MinnCamper, just saw your post... we heard that Pine Ridge got it worse than Bear Paw, sorry to hear from you that it was true. It was crazy how fast the storm whipped up and then was over, wasn't it?
Thanks for sharing your pictures, I also posted some, of the Bear Paw CG (just around our loop), here is the link:
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