We won't forget for a long time the enormous damage inflicted by Hurricane Ivan on the Airport-area section of the Montour Trail on September 17 of this year. On six successive Saturdays beginning on October 2, dedicated volunteers undertook the first manual labor tasks required to restore this section of the Trail to recreational use. These efforts included removing debris deposited by the flood waters at trailside and reclaiming flood-displaced ballast stone for reuse in filling the huge washouts that had occurred.

Centered mainly on the Cliff Mine parking lot, the debris removal generated twelve truckloads of rubble that were generously accepted by the BFI landfill at Boggs without charge to the MTC. This debris removal extended over a two-mile length of the Trail. The ballast we scooped from the edges of the parking lot using our tractors and hand shovels filled deep trenches in the trail bed nearby, enabling our trucks to travel over the Trail right-of-way for follow-on restoration work. In addition, we recovered hundreds of fence posts and rails valued at $10 apiece near the Beaver Grade Road crossing and at other locations.

A total of 415 labor hours were given by 55 people in the Saturday sessions, about two-thirds of whom were first-time Trail volunteers. In addition, employees of Glaxo SmithKline contributed an additional 69 labor hours in a mid-week, company-sponsored, Day of Caring volunteer work session devoted to trailside cleanup at the bottom of Park Manor Drive. The MTC appreciates the contributions made by all of these people.

Those volunteers who contributed 10 hours or more of their time to this flood restoration effort include: Jerry Bates, Rich Blaskiewicz, Jesse Forquer, Carl Haney, Susan Hyre, Frank Keppel, Jonathan Keppel, Carolyn Lake, Thomas Lorenzi, Pete Merther, Dave Murphy, Dennis Pfeiffer, Stan Sattinger, Jonathan Shomody, and Greg Walz.

A great deal of heavy machine work for the placement of stone and other trail rebuilding operations will be taking place in the coming months. Following the heavy machine work, additional volunteer sessions will be needed for the reinstallation of fencing, planting of grass seed, and other manual labor tasks. If you wish to offer your services in future tasks of the flood restoration, please email us at MontourTrailHelp@yahoo.com as spring approaches.