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Foresters' Corner
As promised we at Fort Mountain Companies will continue to share information that we find interesting with our customers, suppliers and friends. On July 24th a rare and record breaking EF2 tornado touched down and did extensive damage in 11 New Hampshire towns. The towns hit include Epsom, The tornado lasted for approximately one hour and 20 minutes. It left behind destruction of an estimated 8,400 acres of timber and over 200 buildings. For more information about the cleanup of tornado damage visit www.nhptv.org/outlook/ and click on program archives to view a recent program aired on Channel 11.
Your friends in the forest, Fort Mountain Companies. Jeff & crew |
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Deerfield, Northwood, Pittsfield, Barnstead, New Durham, Alton, Wolfeboro, Ossipee, Effingham, and Freedom. The tornado left a 50 mile long path of destruction sometimes reaching one third of a mile wide; thus making it the longest path length on record for the state of New Hampshire. Click on 
Our large mechanical harvesting crew was on the ground cleaning up the Van Berkum Nursery in Deerfield two days after the event. Several years earlier they had worked on this same piece of land harvesting for the owners. All were awe struck by the power of the storm. They all said it was slow going to clean up the trees that had been damaged or downed. The majority of the wood had to be chipped, since it was not suitable to sell as sawlogs. 
One of our tornado clean up projects will be the Valley Brook Farm off of Route 107 on the Epsom Deerfield line. The farm is owned by Joyce Yeaton and her family. Their focus is on Morgan Horses and Hereford Cattle and they have produced prize winning livestock. After the storm had moved past their area, they noticed the cattle that were in the field were missing. The field had received a direct hit and had suffered damage from the tornado. A quick search of the field and surrounding area resulted in no cattle. Meanwhile, NHDOT trucks arrived to clear the road. While looking around the workers could hear the bellowing of the cattle. After two hours of searching by the Yeaton family and DOT workers, the cattle were found trapped by downed trees in the culvert. They had taken shelter just before the storm hit and could not get out. DOT workers cleared debris and downed trees from one end of the culvert and helped to coax the cattle out of their storm shelter. The Yeaton family was amazed at how the cattle knew to take shelter in that culvert before the tornado hit.