Last Thursday evening we had a great big storm out at camp. It all started with Mark W saying, "Wow, the sky is dark". I checked the radar maps on the Environment Canada website and saw a solid wall of red sweeping across eastern Manitoba. I was going to go down to Lakeside hall to ride out the storm with the campers but two seconds after I declared that I was leaving the office, the rain started and I decided to stay.

Good thing too. The storm came up really fast and within five minutes of the first rain we had tree snapping wind gusts and hail. Fun for all. The bad bit of the storm lasted only 30 seconds but did plenty of damage across camp. Here are the most impressive trees that were leveled.

I ran out of the office into the rain after noticing that a few trees were down. On my way across camp I found two trees that were leaning or had fallen over power lines. While the rest of the staff started to clear the trees and drag them away I stood guard over a fallen tree. My job was as follows; stand guard over the tree, make sure no one comes near it, and put out any fires it may start until help came. My job would only be finished when Manitoba Hydro arrived to shut off the lines.

For this important task I was armed with a fire extinguisher. After spending half an hour standing, and no fire occurring; I abandoned my post briefly in search of a chair. I continued to man my post for the next hour and a half until Hydro arrived.

I had a boring job; the rest of the support staff had busied themselves clearing the trees that had fallen over the road by the summer washrooms. I found out that in addition to the two power lines I saw, another tree was on a power line and one tree grazed the corner of cabin six.

Things are nearly cleaned up now; the camp is in possession of a lot of firewood and so much brush I don't know how we will get rid of it. Most of the guys really enjoyed the evening of work because there are few things that are manlier than spending the night nursing a sore arm from prolonged chainsaw use.