Hudson, South Dakota – This week, powerful storms devastated South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota.
This weekend, cleanup from the storms continued in rural communities such as Hudson, South Dakota. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who lost more trees than one rural Hudson farm.
Lori Pick and her husband, Gary Fossum, purchased the original homesteaders’ land over twenty years ago.
With 95 acres on the Big Sioux River, the family and the surrounding community recognized it as a peaceful haven.
“It’s a gathering place and a place of healing, is how we’ve seen the farm and it’s how we treated it,” Pick told me. “We invited our family and friends. We share this farm. It’s not just intended for us.”
“We have had weddings on this farm, my husband proposed to me on this farm, and we have memorialized people who have passed away on this farm,” Lori’s daughter, Paige Thompson, recalled. “The memories and the space of this farm is really hard to describe.”
It is a lot to keep up, but they did it with love. Pick is a self-described “tree-lover” who tries to instill a love of nature in her grandchildren. They incorporate games and activities at the beach or in the woods when they gather for “cousin camp.”
“These trees must be cared for. It is a gift. “The wealth lies in the beauty of the woods,” Pick explained.
That’s why hearing the word “derecho” in the forecast made them even more concerned.
“When the storm approached the farm, my daughters, in particular, cried from our basement. The news kept saying it was 100 miles per hour winds; shortly after, it was 120 miles per hour winds, and our hearts sank because we knew it was going to hit this community and our farm,” Thompson said.
When they lived in Lennox, a tornado struck while they were not at home. They were also not home when the hurricane-like windstorm struck their Hudson home. The aftermath shook the entire family.
“I’ll tell you, what’s really hard is when you get the call that it’s been hit and it’s devastating and you can’t get to it, so you have no idea,” says Pick. “I thought it was going to be bad, but I never thought it was going to be this bad.”
“It’s a hopeless feeling when the place you love the most is hit by something that you can’t control at all,” Thompson told the audience.
They were met with a blocked driveway and a mangled mess of downed trees. It shifted from a state of healing to one of hurting. From canopies to carnage.
“We walked up and you could not even get up the driveway,” Thompson recalled. “You couldn’t get ten feet from where you parked your car because there were so many trees down.
It’s still difficult for the family and those who knew the property well to understand how many trees were lost. Cleaning up thousands of trees does not happen quickly. They are still unable to reach the majority of the trees or even the river due to blocked pathways. Over 400 trees have already been removed from the property, with many more to go.
“To look up and see that is truly shocking. There are no words to describe what it’s like to be in a place you love. “It’s home,” Thompson stated.
“It’s overwhelming because when a tree falls in the woods, it carries things with it, tangles other trees, and leaves things hanging. These are large trees. This is an older woods, so it’s not easy to get our trails back. I feel a strong obligation to do right by these trees. Moving forward, I’ll need some advice on how to proceed and rebuild these woods,” Pick said.
The next generation will remember the storms not only for the trauma of seeing the place they grew up visiting in ruins, but also for the responsibility of carrying out the restoration. It gives them a new purpose. The homestead will be a gathering place again someday, but healing may occur somewhere along the way.
“I feel like the pickup is probably going to be hard, but I feel like it’s going to be really great once it’s done,” Thompson’s daughter, Maddie, exclaimed. “Each of the cousins can pick the kind of tree they want.”
“We were in the middle of cleaning everything up yesterday, and I just kind of paused and looked [at our family friend]. I was in tears and said, ‘I can’t believe this. We’re not going to see these trees as big again. We won’t see these trees grow again. The family friend stated, ‘We’re not doing this for ourselves. We’re doing this for your children. We are doing this for my children. This is not about us anymore. “They’re going to see these trees grow, and they’re going to create and maintain the peace that we’ve built on this farm,” Thompson said.
“It’s not the end,” Pick explained. “It’s just a new beginning, and they’re going to have to be a big part of how this is going to look in the future and that’s how we’re going to heal.”
While accepting help may have been difficult, the family expressed gratitude to the volunteers who helped clear the yard. Their focus will now shift to the woods on their property, as well as the restoration of the river trails.
