“Tree limbs and debris were flung around,” Penny Arnn, wife of Hillsdale President Larry P. Arnn said.
The first storm occurred around 3 a.m. on Sunday, June 20, causing damage to trees, electrical lines, vehicles, homes, and public buildings.
Brock Lutz, director of Hillsdale Health and Wellness, said he lost over 40 trees between his house and his neighbor’s during the night.
“I had to buy a chainsaw this summer. There were enormous limbs down everywhere,” Associate Professor of English Dwight Lindley said. “I had to cut up tree-size limbs both in my front and backyard.”
According to Arnn, a tree fell and crushed a minivan along Fayette Street. On campus, maintenance cut down over seven maple trees for safety reasons.
Lindley counted over one-hundred and fifty-three rings on one campus sugar maple, dating the tree back to about the year 1868.
“The sugar maples are a tangible connection to the past and almost to the founding of the college,” Lindley said.
On Thursday, Aug. 12, at about 6 a.m., the second storm hit and caused a more widespread amount of damage than the first, according to Arnn.
Winds jumped up to 70 mph, uprooting trees that impacted both personal vehicles and homes in the Hillsdale community, according to Arnn.
“My family had our sleep disturbed that night as the winds were blowing loudly and fiercely,” Sam Knecht, professor emeritus, said. “Above the sound of the freight train engines, people described the sound of a tornado.”
The storm left the Knechts untouched, but did leave its mark with over two large trailer loads of branches and brush in the yard.
“We were left without power for two days,” Knecht said.
In Jonesville, the winds tore off more than half of city hall’s roof, Lindley said. Major flooding also occurred in Jackson and Lansing, which received six inches of rain over the course of six hours.
“Trees lay strewn everywhere,” Lindley said. “It almost felt otherworldly.”
Around campus, the storm caused trees to fall on the electrical lines nearby the Kappa Kappa Gamma House and New Dorm.
Because of the damaged power lines, both the Sage Center for the Arts and the Howard Music Hall lost power for almost three full days.
Rich Péwé, Hillsdale College chief administrative officer, said the winds damaged the flat roof of Central Hall above the elevator tower. The school remained out of power for the day.
Residents within the community, such as Lindley, continued to be without power for almost three days.
In the following days, the maintenance crew spent all of Thursday, Aug. 12 clearing roads and walkways around the school before turning its attention to the damage on campus, according to Arnn.
Arnn said she heard the sound of chainsaws continuing for days as the maintenance team uprooted stumps and cleared away over twenty large maple trees.
As the grounds crew worked, other members of the community played their own roles in helping the town of Hillsdale recover from the storm, Arnn said.
“I heard of neighbors helping each other a lot: taking food to those without power, moving food from freezers without electricity to their own storage freezers, helping remove tree limbs resting on rooftops and porches, offering transportation to those whose cars were stuck inside garages with electric openers, and checking on the elderly and those in need,” Arnn said. “Much of the damage will take homeowners months to repair.”
The maintenance team has restored much of the campus to its original beauty, and has planted a variety of trees to replace those destroyed by the storm.
A section of the quad in front of Central Hall remains behind yellow caution tape, below a large branch that appears ready to fall from a giant oak tree. Péwé said the area will remain off limits until it can be cleared.
“The campus recovered quickly thanks to a lot of hard work,” Arnn said. “We lost many old trees, but no lives.”