Hurricane Ivan Aftermath

Upper Tellico OHV Area, Murphy, North Carolina

September 21, 2004:

The preliminary reports for Hurricane Ivan impacts in Upper Tellico are a mixed bag of bad news and good news. The good news is that so far we have not found any major blow outs, slides, etc. However, there are a large number of trees down, some of which are huge and which will be very dangerous to remove. The other bad news is that apparently many if not most of the dips/waterbars on the trails have failed with water running its course down the trails. This report only covers part of the area. Larry is trying to track down the other folks who were looking yesterday to see what they found. Right now I cannot predict when I might be able to get our folks in there to remove these trees since we are tied up on a lot of other things right now on the main roads etc. and we are still unable to ride ATV's. So, I will try to send you another update later today or early in the morning.

What I'm thinking of doing is trying to get Gunnar/Griff and others who can bring some heavy equipment and saws to work on these trees (unless they are certified to saw by us they would be doing any saw work outside of the volunteer provisions). The heavy equipment would be essential to help in moving these large trees out of the trails and in some cases the trees cannot be safely cut without winching them down. I cannot emphasize enough however, that removing these trees, especially the really big ones is extremely hazardous and we would need to really restrict who does this work not only for their safety but for the general public. If we don't get these trees cleared then people will be by-passing the tree if at all possible creating new problems for all of us. Also, we will need to probably plan to get equipment in there before the winter weather sets in to reshape the dips etc. I will be working on possible contract money to pay for much of this work (I have already requested a fairly huge pot of money for trails just in anticipation of the need over there, and on other district trails. I will try to get you a better picture tomorrow.

Bill Champion
Supervisory Forester
Tusquitee Ranger District
Phone: 828-837-5152 ext. 109
Fax: 828-837-8510
E-Mail: bchampion @ fs.fed.us

September 22, 2004:

"As of 7:15am 9/22/04 the trails are open as per Larry Fox, Ranger District Supervisor. Ride at your own risk - trails 8 and 9 have very large trees down but says there is room to get by. They're going to have to bring in equipment to remove them."

September 27, 2004

Subject: Tellico Work after Ivan
by: Brent Galloway, SFWDA Director of Conservation and Land Management

Members Stroud, Adrienne, Carol Ann, Griff, Sam Stevens, a guy with a TJ that Jim's built, and I were there. Chad and Eric with the Forest Service were there. Chad brought a FS JD 450 and Griff brought the back hoe.

Griff got up on trail 8 near the top of trail 9 and cut a back tire on the back hoe. We had to leave it in the woods. We will have to get it this weekend. The reported "huge" tree on trail 9 was nowhere to be found. There was one big tree on trail 10 that Chad moved with the dozer (I bet that will be the last time he offers to walk a dozer back there).

The big tree that was supposed to be on trail 8 wasn't that huge either. We cut it and a few more small ones. We also went back to hard rock on trail 9 and placed a bunch of trees to help block some of the illegal access.

That's about it. Everything is open.

Trails 8, 4, and 5 need all of the silt traps dug out and lots of the water bars rebuilt. We need to get in there before winter.

Brent Galloway