Park continues summer storm response

A summer storm that lasted a matter of minutes in July has left months of clean-up at Tower Grove Park in its wake.

The storm that hit St. Louis just after midnight on July 10 caused an immediate impact on the Park. This dramatic damage included trees snapped in half and large limbs scattered on the ground, as well as less visible, but just as devastating, damage that will result in the removal of 53 trees this fall.

“We know the forces of nature have the final say on our tree collection, but sometimes it is really tough to see that play out,” Tower Grove Park Executive Director Bill Reininger said. “Luckily no one was injured and we have skilled people on the Park team to help us recover.”

Radar data shows that wind gusts of 73 MPH hit the Park, tripping an alarm at the Piper Palm House at 12:47 a.m., causing a loss of electricity, and damaging trees across the Park’s 289 acres.

In the hours following the storm, the Park’s operations teams – dedicated professionals in the Forestry, Horticulture, Maintenance and Ranger departments – began assessing and addressing the damage. This included first clearing roads to allow for emergency access before moving on to paths. The second phase of response included identifying and rectifying overhead hazards before moving on to developing a plan to clean up and looking for “hangers” – limbs hanging precariously over walkways and roads – and conducting an overall assessment of the Park.

“The first hours of storm response were hectic,” said Director of Operations William Rein, “but our Chief Park Ranger was able to respond as soon as the worst of the storm cleared due to his proximity to the Park. Chief Steve Laughlin began to alert the rest of the operations team as he knew, even in the dark, that this was a powerful storm. The full impact began to reveal itself as sun started to come up on that Saturday morning.”

The hardest hit area was the Park’s northwest corner, near Kingshighway and Magnolia.

 “The area near the Gaddy Wild Bird Garden was severely impacted,” Rein said.

“Several trees were blocking Northwest Drive and our Forestry Supervisor, Kevin McIntyre, found that there was a radar-indicated gust recorded at 74 mph in this area. The map of service requests logged by the City’s Citizen Service Bureau also clearly indicates a trend line coming from Forest Park Southeast cutting directly across the Park,” Rein said. “The data matches what we saw on the ground. There were also a number of street trees impacted in this area and the City’s Forestry and Streets Department responded in the days that followed and hauled out tree debris for a full day.”

Trees are one of the Park’s defining features. Tower Grove Park is a Level II Accredited Arboretum through ArbNet, and is home to nearly 7,000 trees, consisting of approximately 340 tree types.

The July storm critically damaged 83 trees. Fourteen trees were windthrown – or uprooted – by the storm. The other 69 trees suffered snapped or downed limbs.

The initial clean-up effort took weeks, totaling 920 person hours, including time donated by volunteers.

Rein explained that storm response operations follow a similar cadence each time. “The morning after the storm, the initial goal was to clear roadways which was accomplished by the operations team,” he said. “Clearing roads is essential as it allows first responders to both access the damage as well as emergency services should someone be injured and require medical help.”

The second step is to clear walking paths and sidewalks so that our neighbors can recreate and use the park as they do every day of the year.

“The next day, Sunday, Kevin worked all day to develop his cleanup plan to deploy resources as efficiently and safely as possible,” Rein said. “The first week saw the Forestry, Horticulture, and Maintenance teams totaling 14 people work entirely on storm clean up with additional traffic and pedestrian control support from the Ranger team.”

The Park was also able to call on its dedicated volunteer corps who helped over two days and provided 38 hours in service to the park.

To give perspective of the scale of damage from the July storm, in August 2020 54 MPH gusts caused damage that took 493 person hours to clean up, and caused 8 windthrown trees, 23 hangers, and 31 downed limbs. In July 2016, a storm with 53 MPH gusts took 541 person hours to clean up, and had six windthrown trees.

Just as the Park’s operations team responded swiftly, the community also responded quickly to the damage, making contributions to the Park’s Summer Storm Bounce Back fundraiser.

Direct costs so far have included dumpsters, dump truck hauling, and fence repairs. The costs associated with clean-up are still not finished.

The next phase of the clean-up project will involve the removal of 53 trees from the Park. These trees are numbered and marked with a red ribbon. They are primarily located in the northwest portion of the Park.

McIntyre carefully selected each tree to be removed by analyzing its health, structure, and potential for future failure using current industry best management practices to help guide those decisions. “Our goals are to make the Park more resilient to climate change, improve the overall health of the urban forest in the Park, and help make room for new trees,” McIntyre said.

There are a variety of reasons why a tree might need to be removed.

• Thinning or poor tree canopy health. Poor structural integrity. Trees that have experienced past failures and have now been structurally compromised or are beginning to show symptoms of tree health decline as a result of the damage.

• Trees that are dying due to age or stress from insects or disease. 

• Cracks and decay found on the trunk.

Due to the sheer number of trees that need to be removed, the Park has contracted the removal, which will begin in late September. This is a costly project, but one that will ultimately improve the health of the Arboretum in the long run.

As trees are removed, most of the wood will be recycled in one way or another. As many logs as possible will be retained by the Park to be reused through the Park’s wood waste reutilization program. Wood chips will either be composted or reused within the Park’s landscape. (The Park’s policy is to not distribute wood or chips to the public.)

As the removal project moves forward, Park staff members are working on a replanting plan. In 2020 the Park received a multi-year grant from the Mysun Charitable Foundation that will allow for the addition of 1,000 new specimens over five years. That gift, leveraged by a Tree Planting Master Plan funded by the Missouri Department of Conservation and a private donor, will assure that future plantings enhance and strengthen Henry Shaw’s 150-year-old gardenesque landscape design.

Park leadership remains grateful to the people of St. Louis, especially our members, whose financial support creates the resources and resiliency necessary to protect the our beloved park for its second 150 years and beyond.