Severe Weather Hit Hard In Grand Lake Neighborhoods

Many people living around Grand Lake are cleaning up damage caused by severe weather.

Grove and Monkey Island are a couple of the hard-hit areas. 

Neighborhoods around Monkey Island are littered with downed trees and scattered limbs after the strong winds blew through. Many told us this is a double whammy after just getting things back in place from previous storms this summer.

Across the water, Brendan Jensen surveyed the damage to the boats docked at Grand Lake Sailing Club.

“The dock we’re attached to broke in half, rotated around, is now an island in the middle of the cove, unfortunately, that smashed into other docks-it was a cascade,” said Jensen.

Jensen said he and four others rode out the storm on the water.

“By 9:00, all hell had broken loose. I don’t know exactly how fast the winds blew through here were, but the rumor is they were between 70 and 80 miles per hour,” said Jensen. “This is the first time I’ve done that on a sailboat. That was quite the adventure.”

Commodore Fred Overstreet says 80 sailboats were tied to three different docks - all of which broke off because of the strong winds. He’s working with the owners to get them out of the water and tied somewhere else.

“We’ve had several storms through here that have caused some damage; we’ve had to reposition docks, but nothing like this. This is pretty severe,” said Overstreet.

Members are looking forward to getting things cleaned up and getting the Club up and running again.

“Insurance will pay for all of this, but it can’t pay for lives lost, and that’s what’s most important to us, is that nobody got hurt,” said Jensen.