REGIONAL—Severe thunderstorms that moved along the border early Tuesday morning left at least seven Boundary Waters campers trapped in their tents, some with serious injuries, due to fallen trees.

The storm moved through about 2 a.m., and caused pockets of blowdown throughout the region, although some of the worst was found in patches from Crane Lake to Lac La Croix and along portions of the Echo Trail. The storm also knocked out power to thousands of customers across northeastern Minnesota.

The first reports of injuries came in around 3 a.m., when a large group camping on La Croix’s Lady Boot Bay reported trees had fallen on two tents, injuring 37 year-old Kirk Sanchez, and 13 year-old Hayden Toups, both from Louisiana.

Mark Anderson, of Anderson’s Resort, who had outfitted the group, received the first transmissions, and quickly alerted the St. Louis County Rescue Squad. He also contacted Mark Zupancich, of Zup’s Resort, on Lac La Croix, who offered to assist the victims. Kurt Erickson, Rescue Squad coordinator, gave Zupancich the legal authority to enter the wilderness with his motorboat and he and a resort employee went to pick up the victims. They transported the victims to the Beatty Portage, where first responders from Crane Lake and members of the St. Louis County Rescue Squad, hauled by Anderson, met them and took them the rest of the way to Handberg’s Marina, at Crane Lake.

According to Erickson, it appeared Sanchez was suffering from a broken arm, a dislocated shoulder, and chest pains, while the teenager may have suffered a broken pelvis and other internal injuries. The Virginia Ambulance transported the victims to Essentia Hospital in Virginia, where their injuries were not considered life-threatening.

But the La Croix rescue wasn’t the only one of the day. About noon on Tuesday, the sheriff’s office received another distress call, this time from a group on Loon Lake, where five more wilderness campers were trapped in tents. Two of the victims were seriously injured, and both ended up being flown out to Ely by a Forest Service float plane crew, to catch a Lifeflight. Erickson said one of the victims appeared to have suffered a broken hip or pelvis. Rescuers transported three others from the group, with less serious injuries, to Crane Lake. No information on the identities of the victims was immediately available. Morse/Fall Lake First Responders also participated in the rescue.

Given the number of injuries from the storm, the Forest Service established an incident management team to determine whether others might still be trapped in the area. Forest Service pilots conducted aerial reconnaissance and crews using square stern canoes and outboards visited other campsites in the area, but found no other injured campers.

BWCAW travel affected

While the tree damage was minor compared to the massive 1999 event, Tuesday’s storm left hundreds of downed trees across forest roads and portages throughout the northwestern part of the Superior National Forest. Rescuers responding to Crane Lake reported that the storm left the Echo Trail blocked north of Lake Jeanette by countless trees, which initially prevented them from responding to the La Croix incident. Erickson said he contacted St. Louis County Public Works, which sent a road grader to the area to clear a path through the devastation. According to Forest Service spokesperson Becca Manlove, work crews are already busy clearing roads on the forest and are assessing the situation in the BWCAW, from both the air and the ground and will begin clearing operations on portages and campsites as soon as possible. “That will likely be the focus of our work the rest of the summer,” she said.

At this point, said Manlove, no portage trails are reported to be impassable and none are officially closed. “But there will be plenty of portages with trees down,” she said.

Widespread power outages

According to the Forest Service, it appears that the storm included numerous, scattered downbursts, which left pockets of significant blowdown, while other areas were largely unaffected. Similar damage was seen in pockets across a wide swath of northeastern Minnesota, and the damage sparked power outages in many parts of northern St. Louis County. At the height of the storm, Lake Country Power was reporting about 15,500 customers were without power as high winds snapped power poles and pushed hundreds of trees onto power lines, leaving many broken and on the ground. As of Wednesday morning, Lake Country Power crews had restored power to about 10,000 customers, with 5,400 still without power.