Bugg Stories vol. 5

when the black wall of the tornado hit on that thursday afternoon more than four hundred people including to school groups were visiting andrew jackson's plantation they took cover in the storm cellar of jackson's mansion in the visitor center public relations and marketing director kelly reichardt devastation is the word out using it on this was sad or right after it happened because everything was still grain in the year it can snow sleet turned all the next day and the next day the words were just flying everywhere looking financing calling to each other and demand now and they are eight licks looks very sad made that night when i like it also save a lot of work at the mansion survived with only chimney and roof damage the trees thousands of trees some dating back to jackson's era lean or lie on their sides roots grasping for the sky the one shade garden where jackson in his beloved wife rachel i am tuned is now bear you can look across the rolling hill nc the red colored kroger but enroll what it looks like actually is its appearance when entering jackson's lifetime it was

much more open and we have portraits of what the grounds look like a nineteen forties and nineteen fifties after his death and this is a very open sky and as somebody pointed out i think rather wisely that when jackson lived here this that armitage was a settlement in the middle of a frontier and now it's an oasis in the middle of that civilization and so thats as having that the trees in the buffer zone in south lebanon right is very important and we won the first serious that we concentrate on sea won't be held a drab in lebanon reagan see that came in seeking the engine the way he can some of the losses are heartbreaking the magnolia tree by that sailed that jackson planted in memory of rachel and the cedars that line the driveway that are now tangled snarled mess that's the peachtree right off your cell that was the record holder for that it's uncanny it was the largest bee chain candy is gone by famous estimates the hunted to lose more than twelve hundred

trees this week cruz from the national park service in morse arboretum in philadelphia are on site to help assess the damage and create a landscape strategy the park service is constructing a detailed map noting every tree fence building and pathway by using what's called a global positioning system three park service team members walk about carrying backpacks with spear like antennas attached to make computer cables running to what looks like an oversized handheld remote it's modern conditions david low stands by leaning dogwood tree by using his handheld computer and the intent on his back he can in less than a minute with the help of us air force satellites up above trying to leave his position and that location of the street he quickly enters the trees its bases its circumference and the damage and pulls a map from his backpack to show me what they've done so far this is the hermitage building this is the famous guitar shaped

dr that lead into the mansion grounds these xs what you see all over the map or the downed trees in this particular area of its run in about the sixty percent that are downed or severely damaged trees and some of the other areas fared better was least one area fared much worse that's done it to a grove there's an entire a looks like about a six acre area of the huge old tulip poplars which are twelve in and fifteen feet in diameter that are just now they're all down and this is a very dramatic scene the mapping at the park service is doing will be invaluable when the hermitage ladies association which runs the side begins to restore the landscape arbor is richard ward says the key here is taking the needed

time initial temptation this you've got so much work you just really try to get it done as quickly as possible and you can make decisions that you regret later that you realize as you see something else recover comedy that other tree like that would have recovered to ortiz with the team from the more somber read i'm in philadelphia in nineteen eighty one a tornado hit the arboretum destroying and damaging some six hundred trees they've been learning ever since about tree survival and have sent a three man disaster relief team to nashville to assess the damage at the hermitage <unk> barbara's done repairing gear and shimmy up trees to check out damaged and runaway injured branches to things that report was that decision making process what you take especially in older trees that's a huge issue that can mean the loss of the moral victory as they have a limited to the surface area and they have lots and lots of cells to support so you don't want people who are on a chainsaw happy just looking to cut everything gets in the way and then after the decision process knowing what to

cut is how to cut and where to make proper cuts if you leave stubbs on trees sticking out it's like we call the sugar state gets it's like candy for the microorganisms that cause discoloration and decay for the hermitage staff the last three weeks and this process have been a bit try to moment as the groundskeeper and i'm i don't know if it's on the beach trade and i mean these things they have their personalities too common there they hang around them enough you know it's like any another courts you know you know you know when they drop lula little acorns you know when they drop the lambs you know here you're picking up after my kids yet look around and shed a tear to my minutes like yeah i needed to do that but then right after that i just felt kind of our was almost like ok that's that this is done standing now carolyn brackett says oh he

presented to probably be about the same the same thing about jackson a lot of people don't realize is that he was very religious entity am whenever something happened it was god's will and there was a reason for it so anointed speculating that what he would have said that i think it would and something along those lines and then the most amazing things in a ways that the team was not here but trees failed to either side of that same but not directly on that same so you know maybe the general was still leaking out for his property the national park service crew will continue mapping to day in the morse arboretum team will be on site through the weekend the hermitage hopes to reopen to the public on monday for national public radio it's b

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