About three thousand trees were damaged or toppled in Forest Park when a tornado ripped through St. Louis earlier this month.
While trees remain standing in every part of the park, the damage has drastically altered the landscape of the nearly 150-year old beloved attraction.
“We work in the park every day and we know all the spots,” Forest Park Forever spokesperson Dominik Jansky said. “Every corner you turn there's a familiar large tree or a vista, and just to see it upturned in a flash was just so jarring.”
After the EF3 tornado passed, the park’s first priority was clearing major hazards and blocked roadways with support from the city's streets department and the parks, recreation and forestry division, Jansky said.
Now, it is welcoming volunteers to help with the massive clean-up effort.
Patrick Flynn joined a group of about 10 volunteers last week. They worked for two hours on a single downed white oak near the park’s northern edge, loading limbs and chainsawed chunks of the trunk into trucks.
“It is very heartbreaking, but you know, I'm sure that Forest Park Forever will replant this, and in a few years, it'll look beautiful again,” said Flynn, who has volunteered at the park for the past three years.
The damage assessment is ongoing, but Jansky said out of 16,000 trees that are in the park’s manicured sections, around 18-20% were impacted. The figure does not include trees in the park’s forests, golf courses or the St. Louis Zoo.
Forest Park Forever officials are still calculating a monetary damage estimate, but donations and volunteer requests poured in soon after the May 16 tornado, said Forest Park gardener Julie Pickering.
“We knew [the volunteers] would want to be here and that makes you feel great because they're invested in the park as much as we are, maybe more sometimes,” Pickering said.
The cleanup and recovery process will be long. The tornado killed 5 people and caused $1 billion dollars in property damage in St. Louis.
Landscapers continue to chop fallen trees and remove hanging branches around the park, including some St. Louis companies that are donating their labor.
"As bad as things look, they are already starting to look better,” Pickering said.
Plans for long term restoration are still in the works, Jansky said, adding that replanting will have to be done in a way that balances the needs of current visitors and those that will come decades later. The park receives 15.5 million visitors annually.
It will also take decades to restore sections that had 100-year-old trees, Jansky said.
“We'll have to put a thoughtful plan together on what we can do and how quickly and with what resources to address a much larger event like this,” Jansky said. “We have some great staff who are really brilliant at thinking at both the one-to-two-to-three year time horizon and the 50-to-60-to-70 [year] time horizon.”
No buildings will need major repairs, but some boardwalks and pavements were damaged by fallen trees. The Dennis & Judith Jones Visitor and Education Center, near the handball and racquetball courts, will also need some roof repairs, Jansky said.
After damage assessments are completed, Jansky said Forest Park Forever may create specific fundraisers but nothing is set yet. The nonprofit organization that maintains part of the city-owned park will also seek available grants to recoup costs and assist recovery.
The park remains open, but park officials caution visitors to beware of unstable hanging branches and blocked paths. Forest Park Forever is tracking its recovery efforts online.
This story has been corrected to reflect the estimated tree damage is between 18-20%.
