A tornado, rated EF-3 by the National Weather Service, touched down on the western boundary of the reservation on June 7th, 2007 at approximately 5pm.  It proceeded northeast carving a path 12 ½ miles long to the northern boundary a few miles west of Highway 55.  The path ranges from ¼ to over ½ mile wide, with most of the affected area being completely flattened.  Some portions along the edges of the path are only partially affected, but even most of these areas sustained at least 50% damage as there is a fairly well defined line delineating most of the damaged area.

 

Stand Damage and Management Impact

Acreage measurements have been developed using a combination of GPS-based ground surveys and aerial photography.  Based on these surveys, MTE reports:

  • 2,200 acres of predominantly northern hardwood and hemlock forest flattened
     
  • several hundred acres have scattered, small pockets of localized blowdown resembling a single-tree selection thin (the actual acreage varies, depending on the definition of 'affected stands')

  • This amounts to approximately 1% of the forested land on the reservation affected

  • Post-salvage harvesting progressed rapidly and on-schedule, resulting in minimal impact on normally schedule forest management and planned harvesting

 

Salvaged Volume Summary


  • 13.9 million board feet (MMBF) of timber was salvaged, which includes 8.5 MMBF of sugar maple, 1.7 MMBF of basswood, and 1.8 MMBF of hemlock, and the remaining volume in smaller amounts of other hardwood and softwood species

  • 55,823 cords of pulpwood was salvaged, which includes 41,118 cords of hardwoods, 14,604 cords of hemlock, and the remaining 101 cords in white pine and balsam fir

  • While course woody debris (e.g. small branchs, stumps, etc) remains in the blowdown area, utilization of marketable wood has been salvaged from the upland areas

  • Wetlands and swamp stands were not salvaged in accordance with the Forest Management Plan and Tribal Ordinances in order to protect these areas from potential impact from harvest activities

  A map of the affected area is available in PDF format  here (3MB).

Aerial View of Hazel (bottom) and Crowell (top)Lakes

Salvage Operations

On June 8th, the Forestry Staff at Menominee Tribal Enterprises began assessing the extent of the damage.  In the following days, a salvage plan was developed and approved by the BIA and Tribal Legislature.  Work initially focused on opening the main roads into the areas affected by the storm.  Approximately one week after the tornado, salvage operations began in the flattened areas.  The mill started a second shift to accommodate the increased volume of timber expected from the salvage operation, over 1 million board feet per week at the current rate.

While this storm has had a substantial impact on the forest, it must be remembered that this is a natural event, and one that has occurred numerous times on the Menominee forest in the past and one that is likely to occur again in the future.  For instance, the mature White Pine in the Camp 1 area is the result of a huge blowdown in the 1800s.  The mill was built in 1908 in response to a large blowdown on the western part of the reservation.  More recently, a tornado affected the eastern part of the reservation in 1984 and a windstorm flattened timber near Neopit in 1997.

Given this, MTE recognized that time was of the essence in dealing with a situation like this if the financial loss as a result of the storm is to be minimized.  Maple left to dry in the woods during the summer months is susceptible to blue stain, and the extreme amount of downed timber posed a risk of insect infestation, fire hazard, and impediment to the natural regeneration of the stand.  Additional contractors were brought on-board to quickly salvage the timber to minimize the loss of value due to staining.  Approximately 13.9 million feet of timber was recovered, and work progressed as quickly as was safely possible, both for the logging force and ecology of the forest.  By of the end of 2007, the salvage operation was completed.

Six EMS heli-spots, labelled H1 through H6, were constructed along the tornado path.  These heli-spots served as the lifeline for someone injured in the event of a serious accident in the woods during the salvage operations.  The routes from Highways 47 and 55 to these evacuation points were designated with red-on-white signs throughout the forest.  Fortunately, there were minimal serious injuries during the salvage.  In one instance, a logger was injured and was evacuated by helicopter to Green Bay as a precaution.  The time from the injury to arrival at the hospital was about an hour.  Without the implementation of the emergency evacuation plan and heli-spots, it could have taken 3-4 hours to evacuate the patient to a major hospital.

 

Looking to the Future

Provisions were made in the harvest prescription to ensure that the streams, wetlands, lakes and cultural resources in the path of the tornado were protected, with an eye to maximizing the protection of the resources affected by this storm and ensuing operations.  At this time, work is underway to construct a network of permanent monitoring plots throughout the salvage area to evaluate the longterm effects of the tornado and subsequent salvage operation.  This effort is intended to provide longterm data that will improve our understanding of the effects of the natural disturbance and logging operations in the salvage on the regeneration of the stand.  Furthermore, knowledge gained from this study could directly impact future management decisions in response to windstorms, fire, and other disturbances.  MTE seeks to take advantage of the learning opportunity presented by this rare occurrence.