In June,
Fox Island Park welcomed visitors back for the first time in two years after a derecho damaged the 605-acre county park.
Jeff Baxter, superintendent of Allen County Parks, estimates the storm took down over 3,000 trees in about 15 minutes and left an enormous cleanup project.
![]()
Courtesy Allen County ParksMany trees across the park were knocked over during the 2022 derecho.Now, even as park visitors are swimming, hiking, and enjoying nature within the park, and people are celebrating its re-opening, a large portion of Fox Island remains closed off to the public as clean-up efforts continue.
“It’s just going to take us a long, long time,” he says of the cleanup.
The nature that once populated the park was old. Allen County Parks Board President Mitch Sheppard estimates that many of the trees pre-date white settlements in the region.
“Nature does what nature does,” Sheppard says. “Nature will heal herself. The forest growth will not recover to previous levels in our lifetimes, but we all hope to be good stewards so that this is here way beyond the lifetimes of anyone currently available to see it.”
The derecho changed the landscape of Fox Island Park forever.
Before June 13, 2022
Located in Southwest Allen County,
Fox Island Park featured seven miles of marked trails that took visitors through the 605-acre park. The park was home to a large variety of plants and animals, thanks in part to the natural condition of the park. The park featured habitats like marsh, seasonal ponds, wooded sand dunes, wetland forests, fields, and restored prairies, according to its website. Within the park, 270 acres were designated as a State Nature Preserve.
![]()
Rachel Von StroupBefore the derecho, Fox Island Park's landscape was full of trees.Other amenities included six miles of cross-country skiing in the winter, a nature center, picnic shelters, campfire pits, grills, a swimming beach, fishing, a playground, a wildlife observation building, and a dog beach. Throughout the summer Fox Island Park welcomed day camps and large groups.
Inside the park, the trees were so dense that the nearby highway was typically inaudible and the buildings in the vicinity were rarely visible when the trees had leaves.
The storm and its damage
Allen County Parks Superintendent Jeff Baxter typically doesn’t want to hear from his maintenance team at 11 o’clock in the evening, but on the evening of June 13, 2022, he says he had never been happier to hear from Fox Island Park’s live-in maintenance man, Mike, at 11 p.m.
![]()
Courtesy Allen County ParksA road in Fox Island Park covered in branches and a large fallen tree after the storm.The two were checking in with one another after a
derecho with winds as fast as 98 miles per hour had just hit the area an hour before. Both knew the park had taken a hit, but weren’t certain how much damage had occurred.
The next morning Baxter arrived at the park to assess the damage, but before that could be done, he first had to address the main entrance, which was impassable. He says clearing the road had to be their priority so emergency personnel could access the park if needed and allow the live-in maintenance man and his wife to come and go. It took him and Mike an entire day to clear out the main drive.
Officials announced that the park would be closed to the public with no reopening date in sight as they worked to address the damage.
It took Baxter and the parks team two weeks to assess the park’s state. Initially, they estimated that around 1,800 trees were down based on walk-throughs.
“A normal walk to the lake would take you 45 minutes round trip if you huffed it,” Baxter explains. “Took two and a half hours just to get back to the trails.”
Eventually, drones were used to better determine the extent of the damage and they were able to calculate that the number of trees down was closer to 3,000.
Sheppard says the park left after the derecho is not the same Fox Island Park that existed before.
“There is no way to explain what you can actually observe,” she says of the park. “This is a pretty rare event to see damage to the extent that we saw it here.”
Baxter shares that after the storm staff members who had been with the parks team for almost two decades before the derecho found themselves lost in the park and had to rely on GPS navigation to find their way back, as many of the landmarks that had been memorized for traversing the park were now gone.
![]()
Courtesy Allen County ParksThe road leading to the lake before and after the June 2022 derecho.When explaining the scene Baxter describes trees laying atop one another, stacked four deep in some areas. Some trees were snapped at the top, leaving branches looming above, ready to fall at any moment. Some damage was not as visual or immediate. Some of the root systems of the trees were damaged because so many other trees fell around them, leaving many of the park’s trees vulnerable in the days and years to come after the storm.
“We had two go down yesterday with the wind,” he says during a July 2024 interview. “So even the ones that were left standing, still fall over because they don't have a root system deep enough to keep themselves up.”
So how do you clean up 3,000 fallen trees, that are in some spots, stacked four high, with branches from broken trees looming above?
Slowly, carefully, strategically and with the correct equipment. (Oh, and in the right weather conditions too.)
The clean up
The Allen County Parks employee roster is small– Jeff Baxter and six other full-time employees. The allotted budget is enough to cover the salary of employees. All other expenses, like utilities, maintenance, and supplies are paid for via revenue made by the parks.
When considering the planning, funds and personnel that it takes to clean up damage of this magnitude, it could be helpful to think of the project as an unexpected, new responsibility for the Allen County Parks staff– one they could not prepare for and one that does not take precedent over their preexisting responsibilities.
![]()
Courtesy Allen County ParksBowman Lake at Fox Island Park after the derecho.Baxter and his team still had four other parks to maintain as they dealt with the damage at Fox Island Park over the past two years. Additionally, because the park was closed to the public, it was not bringing in revenue that could help fund the cleanup.
“I can only pull so many people in from other places because the grass still grows at Metea County Park,” Baxter says. “Metea County Park is a bigger rental facility than this one. We had to leave people there to do things. We don't have the equipment [to clean up]. We couldn't afford the equipment.”
To add another layer of complexity to the situation, 270 acres of Fox Island Park is designated as a State Nature Preserve.
“What falls in a nature preserve by law cannot be removed, but so much fell that to be able to make it possibly accessible by the public again, things did need to be removed,” Sheppard explains. “So Jeff's staff had to take the lead in making a request that the state does not see very often– to remove natural material from a nature preserve.”
Coincidentally, the nature preserve took some of the worst damage. In conversations with the DNR, it was estimated that it would be a minimum of 60 years before any of the fallen trees disintegrated. Baxter says the state visited after they submitted their request to remove the fallen trees, took one look at the damage and agreed to allow them to remove the fallen trees.
Even with state approval, the parks team had found themselves in a difficult position trying to solve the logistics of Fox Island’s cleanup.
At this point, Baxter mentions that the solution many people thought made sense was to utilize volunteers, but that was a solution that was never an option.
“Everybody thinks there should be volunteer opportunities like crazy,” he says. “Nobody can understand right after it happened why I wouldn't let them in here with a chainsaw, but it was too dangerous for me and Mike to be back there a lot of times.”
Because of the way trees had fallen and the sheer number of trees down, it was unpredictable how they would move when cut. The hanging, heavy limbs up above added an even more dangerous element to the situation. Baxter explains the park had been closed to the public because it was unsafe for the public to be in in general and it would be even more dangerous to let volunteers in and allow them to start cutting trees.
“People mean well, but it was a cleanup that was bigger than a few chainsaws,” Baxter says. “We really weren't trying to keep people out of here. It was a safety thing.”
Instead, Allen County Parks contracted with a local lumber company, Graber Lumber, that already had the equipment and the expertise to handle a large portion of the cleanup. The lumber company would take the wood as part of their compensation for the labor, solving both issues of how to clean it up and what to do with the trees. They started the cleanup process in July 2022.
Of course, there were and still are obstacles surrounding the cleanup. They had to be careful about where trucks and heavy equipment were used in the parks to avoid causing even more damage.
“It's very important not to damage the root system of the remaining trunks so that presented challenges in itself,” Baxter says. “Which is the reason they’re not open right now because you can't haul over 3,000 logs out of that big an area and not literally ruin the trail.”
![]()
Courtesy Allen County ParksPark leadership estimates that around 3,000 trees were taken down by the derecho.Graber Lumber hauled their last log out in January of 2024, which left the parks team to address the aftermath, like the trails damaged by the equipment. Weather from January to May delayed work progress, but when the rain stopped they decided it was time to let people back in the park, despite cleanup efforts still being underway. Later this year the National Guard is scheduled to help cleanup a part of the park as a logistical training exercise.
A majority of the trails in the front portion of the park are passable and useable. The buildings in the park were untouched by the storm. The playground is open again, as well as the lake, which Baxter says accounts for many of the park's visitors so far this year.
In the meantime, the parks team is working to address the parts of the park that are not yet reopened. Baxter says each trail will be prioritized based on its benefits and current condition, and the restoration work done will reflect those priorities. This means some trials could stay closed permanently, but the parks team has not made any final decisions on that matter.
“Thanks to the commissioners, we did receive some of their ARPA funds,” he says. “With the ARPA funds, we're going to try to do an accessible trail.”
But even a project like an ADA-accessible trail with funding secured will still take time to implement. Baxter has to design the trail and receive bids for the work, which he hopes to have done by the end of this year.
Many trees along the closed trails have limbs still hanging, leaving another problem for the parks team to solve. Baxter is also concerned about invasive species taking over the park. He says the lack of trees now makes it easier for them to move in.
“So not only do we have to work on a trail and get rid of the upper parts of the tree that we couldn't get rid of in this whole process, we have to get rid of those,” he explains.
When it comes to the wildlife in the park, Baxter says they’re adaptable and smart. Throughout the cleanup process, not a single animal skeleton was found.
![]()
Brittany SmithEven after reopening to the public, a large portion of Fox Island Park remains closed off for safety reasons.The ongoing cleanup hasn’t kept visitors away. Baxter estimates that they’ve already welcomed thousands of visitors back to the park. He only has two requests for visitors– continue to be patient as they clean up and don’t cross into areas that are still closed off.
“If you see an area that's roped off, it is for your safety,” he says. “Please take it seriously.”
Sheppard’s seen a lot of chatter and excitement about the reopening. She says the board and herself have a lot of gratitude for the public’s patience and the staff’s work.
“The board wishes to, first of all, express its gratitude to the public for their patience and their support,” she says. “We know that a much-loved asset was denied them for a long time. And to very much thank the staff– Jeff and his staff, who put in herculean effort, because they had to keep all of the rest of the county park system going while they rehabilitated this park.”