Last July, hurricane-force winds whipped through Minnesota lake country and brought summer to a crashing halt.
A year ago this week, a supercell storm raked a path 8 miles long and 3 miles wide, from Gull Lake to Lake Hubert, toppling trees, damaging property and disrupting lives in its path.
It took a year, millions of dollars, and a lot of hard work, but the Brainerd Lakes region has rebounded, just in time for this summer's cabin season.
"Come up and enjoy," said Frank Soukup, director of marketing at the Grand View Lodge Golf Resort and Spa, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this summer and the anniversary since 70-mile-an-hour winds whipped across Gull Lake, sending visitors and residents scrambling for safety. When the weather cleared, 600 trees had blown down across the 640-acre resort.
"We're still piecing things together, even to this day," Soukup said. Luckily, the resort already had work crews on the site when the storm hit. They quickly moved in with chain saws to cut through the mess to get Grand View up and running within a week, he said.
The storm prompted disaster declarations in the central Minnesota counties of Cass, Crow Wing and Todd. By the time damage had been tallied up, the cleanup cost in Cass County topped $1.4 million, according to estimates from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Crow Wing sustained $883,000 in damage and Todd County faced $44,308 in repairs, according to the estimates.
The state funneled more than $1 million in disaster aid to the Brainerd Lakes area to help communities clear downed trees, remove drifts of sand and mud, repair flattened power lines and restore service to thousands of properties the storm had left in the dark.
While most of the storm repairs are complete, Cass County's disaster declaration remains active, and the state's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is waiting for documentation for the last applicant, which should come through in the next few weeks.
