Scanning the weather reports on Monday night as powerful winds lashed the metro area, Kat Johnson could see that she and the other staff at the Kiwanis Scout Camp along the St. Croix River were in the storm’s direct path.
By 9:40 p.m. she ordered everyone to the Marine on St. Croix camp’s fortified storm shelter, which doubles as the craft supplies storage room, and waited.
When the winds hit, “it sounded like a freight train,” said Johnson.
The group of six staffers aged 14 to 23 could hear trees being uprooted in the darkness outside. Nothing struck the shelter directly, but by the time the storm passed, one of the camp’s buildings was severely damaged, and trees and power lines had fallen all over. No injuries were reported. No campers were staying at Kiwanis that night.
The strongest blasts of wind lasted just a few minutes, said Johnson, but she kept people inside until they were sure it was safe to leave. The kids and young adults chatted to stay calm and keep their spirits up, she said, but “we were a little shaken up by all of it.”
The National Weather Service said the storm brought hurricane-force winds to an area stretching from the Upper Plains to the Midwest. The storm was preliminarily classified by the National Weather Service as a derecho, defined as a long-lived line of storms with extreme winds, according to the Associated Press.
Kiwanis camp ranger Brenda App, who lives on site, said she took inventory of the camp after the storm passed and found about 65 trees down. “A lot of trees were literally blown over and uprooted,” she said. “They’re all green, healthy, huge trees.”
The camp doesn’t yet have a total damage estimate, according to Kathryn Wyatt, a camping director for Northern Star Scouting, the scout organization that covers Minnesota and Wisconsin and operates Kiwanis along with 10 other scout camps.
