BROWN COUNTY — Brown County State Park is still cleaning up after multiple storms hit the park this spring, including an EF-2 tornado.
The tornado happened on May 16 and left a lot of damage to the horse campground.
The park includes over 15,000 acres of land, which means not everything in the park was damaged by storms.
There are more than 130 miles of hiking, biking and riding trails. Most of them are open.
Scott Crossley, the park's property manager, showed WRTV some of the damage.
"This section was taken out by a storm on March 18," Crossley described of a portion of the horse campground. "Then you can see the tornado took out the next section of campground."
It's been a tough year for Crossley and the park staff. In all, four big storms have caused damage, including the storm that produced the tornado.
"This area was completely covered in logs," Crossley recalled. "The road was probably twenty feet high with logs and trees. We've done a lot of cleanup, but still have a lot to go."
Surrounding the campground, there were still plenty of fallen trees, piles of logs that have been collected, and debris from the storms.
The camp's bathroom is using a tarp as a roof currently. There is no electricity in the campground anymore; a destroyed electric box, hollowed out and filled with water. There are still lawn chairs and other camping debris left over in the fields.
Right after the May 16 tornado, about 70% of the park's 72 miles of horse riding trails were closed because they were covered in fallen trees.
Now, two months later, half of the horse trails are still closed.
"I've done this for about 30 years, and we have never had storms like this at any park I've worked at," Crossley shared.
People travel from all over to visit the park's horse riding trails.
Some good news for the park was that their riding stable was not damaged, and all of the park's horses were unharmed.
Crossley says it has taken a lot of DNR staff and volunteers to get the horse camp partially reopened.
"The Indiana Trail Riders Association, they brought their own equipment, their own chainsaws," Crossley said. "They have just been amazing. They have spent over a thousand hours, multiple times now."
Volunteers have been out to the park after all four storms to help clear damaged trees.
Crossley knows there's a lot of work ahead of the park to fully reopen all the horse trails. He is hopeful this can happen before the fall influx of tourists.
"It was a tragedy for sure, but I think you're just overwhelmed by the support you get after," Crossley said of the volunteer team.
Crossley also shared that because there have been fewer people in this portion of the campground, he has noticed more wildlife like deer and turkeys in the area.
"We have to remember, a tornado is a natural event," Crossley stated. "We had some issues. Nature seems to deal with it just fine."
Crossley expects the vegetation to begin growing back in the next year or two in the areas damaged by the tornado. He is excited to see how the regrowth will transform the area.
