Zeta Aftermath Cleanup

Covered Bridge Trail with one of the blowdowns

Tropical Storm Zeta came thru North Georgia during the night of Thursday October 29. Winds of 62mph were reported up on Ridgeview Drive. Residents woke up on Firday to a massive mess of downed trees. Road crews went to work to clear the roads.

Trails Committee members went to check on their assigned trails as soon as they could. They found that most trails were totally blocked by downed trees. Many places had multiple trees fallen on one spot from a large tree taking down other trees with it. Teams with chainsaws went out to start the cleanup. The main priority was to restore passage.

Completely blocked were:

Wildcat Perimeter Trail, Red Loop, Wildcat Access, Meadows Connector, Meditation Park’s Nature Trail and Covered Bridge Trail, Indian Rock’s Indian Mounds Loop, High Gap’s White and Red Trails, Choctaw, and Waterford Park’s Blackwell Springs Trail.

By Friday evening, all but Wildcat Access, Choctaw and High Gap’s Red Trail were passable. That’s a lot of man hours in one day!

Weekend: Wildcat Access opened, cleared trees on Lake Trail and Blackwell Springs Trail. High Gap Red trail open. Choctaw open. Nancy Womack fully checked and passable. All trails now passable as of 5pm Sunday.

Crews ranging in size from one to 4 members were hard at work to clear up the trails. About half the committee members participated, and several friends joined in too.

Below is just a small sample of work done:

Covered Bridge Trail cleared. Our intrepid crew on the way home after 6 hours clearing multiple blowdowns on Nature, Blackwell Creek, Covered Bridge and Blackwell Creek Access trails.

High Gap, one of the 10 downed trees, cleared

High Gap portion of the Red Trail rebuilt after root ball destroyed a large portion

Blackwell Springs Trail: work has started

Liz SchererNovember 1, 2020