Woodhaven Lakes - part 3

It is now August 24th, 2015 and the cleanup efforts are still underway at Woodhaven Lakes near Sublette, IL.  The EF1 tornado hit on Monday June 22nd and nearly destroyed the south west corner of the recreational facility.   Many families lost their RV's and or campsites and all of there posessions during the event.  It is amazing that it has been two months since the tornado and clean up is still continuing.

We all thank God that it happened on a Monday when there was a much lower level of attendance than is witnessed on the weekend and no lives were lost.   It could have been much worse.

Those who have decided to stay and rebuild their recreational lifestyles are by now well towards the realization of their goals.  But some have not been so fortunate and were wiped out to a point that is not recoverable.  These people may decide to leave Woodhaven Lakes and just let the Association take possession of their lots and the effort to clean them up.  Right now no one knows for sure what efforts will be brought to bear by the Association in this matter but it currently appears that they are not too compassionate towards those who decide to just walk away.

Here are the latest approximated stats:

• 15,000 trees either damaged or destroyed
• 9,500 dump truck loads of debris
• 50,000 + cubic yards of mulch created by shredding (so far more to come)
• 40 Electric pedestals destroyed
• 900 lots damaged to varying degrees (approx 50% of lots)
• 1,400 lots with tree damage
• 281 damaged RV's have been removed from the park

Estimated costs to date:

• $536,000 thru July 31st. 2015
• $473,000 on tree removal only
• $36,000 on garbage removal

The $536,000 reflects a $111,000 savings on the cost of use of barrel shredder by giving the owner the ownership rights to the generated mulch.

It was a major hit to the park the likes of which Woodhaven Lakes has never before seen.  It will take quite a while to fully recover from this event and the recovery efforts will extend into the 2016 season.  Many planned projects were placed on hold and some of those planned resources are being used to fund the recovery efforts. 

View my personal web site:   http://www.jdevtech.com

Woodhaven Lakes Web Site:    http://www.woodhavenlakes.com