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Lake O' the Pines clean-up efforts one week later

Clean-up at Brushy Creek campgrounds is underway. It's expected to take several months of work until that area of Lake O' the Pines reopens.

It's been just over one week after deadly storms blew through Lake O' the Pines and crews are still out cleaning up.

One person was killed, and another severely injured during the storms that produced over 80 mph winds.

Those storms also caused a lot of other damage.

"The only thing I could relate it to was the damage from Hurricane Rita on a much smaller scale," said Robert Henderson, a Natural Resource Specialist at Lake O' the Pines.

Trees fell over, snapped, or are leaning on other trees surrounding them. Those uprooted trees also uprooted electrical lines.

"We had bare wires exposed so we went and shut those down individually so we wouldn't have any hot wires on the ground," Henderson said.

He said they won't be able to assess the damage to the electrical system until all the trees have been cleared from the area. Clearing the trees should take a couple more weeks.

"Then we'll have to go back and do a damage assessment," he said.

From there, they are hoping to receive an emergency fund to help pay for everything needed to get back up and running.

"We don't have the funds in our operating budget at this time to repair damage on that scale," Henderson said.

It would also help pay to fix the water system.

Crews discovered a leak in it last week.

They are working as quickly as they can, but safety is the number on priority.

Henderson believes it will take several months to repair all the damage, saying he's tentatively planning to re-open on the Fourth of July, but that all depends on funding and when workers can work.

The weather can delay the re-opening of the campgrounds.

The other three campgrounds are still open, just Brushy Creek is closed.

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