Goderich Tornado Recovery
On August 21st, 2011 an F3 tornado ripped the Town of Goderich, Ontario. The winds were up to 360 kilometers per hour. It lasted only 12 seconds.
The Goderich Project:
- Replacing large trees that were destroyed by an F3 tornado
- Tagging of the trees took several days and many trips to various nurseries throughout southern Ontario
- It was an extensive list with very large specs. Each tree was tagged by a representative of Goderich, the landscape architect and PAO
- The actual bulk of the job was digging of the trees, many of the larger specimens had to be dug by hand
- Each tree is started by hand digging to see where the roots actually are
- Each root ball is actually different than the other, some can be much smaller even for the same size tree
- The 8’ root ball was hand dug for a 45’ Dawn Redwood
- A good part of the job was behind the scenes which was no easy task
- Over 50 trailer loads in a 2 month window
- Three days a week were spent prepping for the next week to plant, three days a week were on site
- The first loads of trees arrive in the Goderich Courthouse Square in a “parade of trees”
- Many of the town’s people came out to see the trees arrive, along with TV cameras and newspapers – after the devastation of the tornado it was nice to see the support of the people
- A crane was on site to plant the first Oak trees
- 176 trees were planted in the Courthouse Square
- It took two months – 3 days a week to plant them, we started with Zelkovas and the Triumph Elms in November and continued through all kinds of weather conditions
- Arranging cranes in our nursery in Oakville and then again in Goderich throughout December
- We returned to Goderich in the Spring to see how the trees progressed – 95% success rate
- The trees were all flourishing and people were enjoying the park
- The perfect finish, Pond Pro’s installed a beautiful water feature using the Basalt Columns from PAO
Check out our gallery to see the transformation of Goderich town square
