Tremont host volunteer days after storm damage

Volunteers were busy Saturday at The Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont, helping to clean up after severe storms that rolled through the national park on March 25 and 26.

The aftermath was unmistakable driving into the national park; large fallen trees lay across the Middle Prong of the Little River.

In a post on the Tremont website, Jeremy Lloyd, Manager of Field and College Programs, said the National Park Service crew had to “cut and bulldoze their way up the road, through one blowdown after another …”

Lloyd wrote, “One thing I can tell you: in the 25 years I’ve worked at Tremont, I’ve never seen such damage along Tremont Road.”

Over at the Tremont Institute, they were not only dealing with downed trees, but three of their buildings sustained damage and several trails were made impassable by fallen trees and debris, said Operations Director Pete Crowley.

The Activity Center and two staff residences received damage to their roofs.

He said the storm shut the park down for multiple days, and Tremont staff reported that they had never seen damage as bad as this.

Crowley explained that the storms were so severe that young, healthy trees were blown down — not old rotted trees, which one might expect to succumb to strong storms.

That morning, volunteers were mucking out drainage ditches, clearing trails of debris and making piles of limbs. Later, they would help to split fallen logs and re-stack firewood to use in outdoor pavilions.

When looking at the time frame for complete restoration, Crowley said, “This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

It could take months to a year to have everything cleaned up from the storm, he explained.

There are two more opportunities to volunteer to help Tremont recover from the damage: April 19 and April 24. Volunteers can sign up on the Tremont website.

Crowley said there has been a good response from volunteers so far.

When asked why someone should volunteer at Tremont, he said, “You’re in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and you’re helping out a mission-driven organization that connects people to nature.”