MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. — Cleanup efforts are underway at Pioneer County Park in Muskegon County after strong storms brought 70 mph winds through the campground Tuesday morning. The winds brought down trees and large branches. Some of which landed on top of tents and trailers while campers were sleeping.
Park officials said Consumers Energy is working to restore power for the area, which could take several days.
"I’m really impressed with the cleanup efforts and the fact that there's a tree crew on site already is great,” said Josh Nunn. "I know there's a lot of people without power in the area, and that has to be the priority for the utility companies getting all the homes back up and running."
A camper who didn't want to be named said his family of four was inside sleeping when the storm was happening. The strong winds brought branches down and inside of their trailer, the family said they are just thankful no one was injured. Several other trailers at the park were completely destroyed, causing thousands of dollars in damage, leaving the campers to work with their insurance companies to figure out what’s next.
"When we were in the camper, there was a lot of loud noises and we really had to get out of there,” Harris Schwalm said. We had to leave everything we had behind, a lot of people left but my dad stayed to move a lot of stuff so we could go."
Park employees spent Wednesday assessing the damage and using their own resources to clean up the debris. They began work early Wednesday morning to bring the park back to normal as soon as possible for some 130 campers they are expecting to arrive.
"We're doing what we can with what we have to work with, we have all of our saws ready to go, we're just cleaning everything up and trying to keep everyone safe,” said senior park ranger Kris Kluting. "We've got a tree crew coming in today and they're going to take care of the bigger stuff and we'll take care of the smaller stuff.”
The powerful storms and winds left many campers without power and phone service for several days, but with no injuries and crews working to bring power back to the park, campers said they look forward to what's next on their traveling adventures.
"I think it's a different level of excitement for our camping trip than what we were expecting, said Nunn. "We weren't coming out here expecting to go through this big storm, but it adds to the adventure for us, that's for sure."
Park officials said they expect to have the park clear of any debris and back to normal by the end of next week.
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