BEMIDJI - A month after a derecho ripped through the region, sparing lives but devastating the forest canopy, Bemidji area officials shared a rough estimate of how many trees fell victim to the storm.
Despite the vast acreage of knocked down and uprooted trees from the June 21 straight-line, hurricane-force winds, the damage falls short of federal disaster relief by $800,000, said Chris Muller, Beltrami County Emergency Management director. He said total damage in the county so far is $8.2 million.
“The personal impacts are what’s really difficult to assign a number to,” he said.
Justin Sherwood, the Bemidji fire chief and city’s emergency manager, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s formula doesn’t consider poverty (Beltrami is among the poorest counties in the state) or how trees factor into industry and way of life.
Bemidji is the birthplace of Paul Bunyan, the area has a rich logging history and a landscape defined by thick pines. Sherwood said FEMA can’t put a dollar figure on a tree, but losing millions of them will no doubt affect tourism and recreation**.**
“It frustrates me when this area in northern Minnesota, which is a regional hub that serves a ton of people, is pretty much brought down to its knees and that extra little assistance that we need to get over that hump is not brought here,” Sherwood said.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar on a recent visit to Bemidji saw the impact of the storm, when it took a week to fully restore power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. She joined Sherwood and local officials for a recovery debriefing and to promote a marketing campaign, “We are open,” to boost tourism in the wake of the storm.