Bear Paw Resort Tornado!

Well, the severe weather that was threatening Wisconsin last week (June 7th) missed us, with only a strong thunderstorm blowing through late that evening. Nice lightning, but that was about it.

Northern Wisconsin wasn't so lucky, with large hail and a few tornados. I started to get a little curious that afternoon when I noticed reports of a kayak in a pine tree. White Lake? That's where we do our whitewater rescue training for Timber-lee's widerness trip staff. They had just been to Bear Paw Resort, our traditional training spot, earlier that week. The resort was hit square on by a F3 tornado measured at almost a half mile wide with winds around 160mph. All of the buildings there were severely damaged or completely destroyed.

An example of God's protection: my friends John & Roy were at Bear Paw helping with training that week & were at the resort on the day of the storms. They had almost settled on taking a nap, but decided that they needed to eat, so they went into Antigo for dinner. On the way back they encountered a roadblock. Evidently, search crews were looking for 2 men missing from the resort. "Uh, you're probably looking for us" was John's response & they let them through.

Pray for Jamee, Shirlee, and the rest of the Bear Paw crew. Roy lost his minivan and a bunch of climbing and river gear.

Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dghx4_iywOY for John's video (no sound) of what they found once they returned from dinner.