Archive: News

After a mild summer Friday that made the prospects for Saturday's Lansing Harbor Festival look good, Mother Nature struck Lansing with a vengeance.  A thunderstorm struck with hurricane winds, hail larger than nickles, and solid sheets of rain causing white-out for drivers along Ridge Road.  Five utility poles between the school campus and the Lansing United Methodist Church snapped in half, plunging 1200 homes into darkness.  And the park was trashed.  "In less than a couple of hours time it went from being absolutely immaculate to a disaster," says Park Superintendent Steve Colt.  "It was a nasty mess.  Had it occurred when we had 1500 people in the park it would have been very dangerous."


As it was, the strom was quite dangerous.  At least one area house was damaged by a tree, while huge limbs fell onto a camper in Myers Park where a family was spending their vacation.  "The miracle is that nobody got hurt," Colt says.  "The other remarkable thing is that only one camper was seriously damaged.  The highway department came that night to surgically remove branches from that camper, and cleared it off so it was safe."


Harbor Festival Chairwoman Veaner was at the park when the storm hit, watching as tents were torn, collapsed, and one flew across Myers Park until it wrapped itself around a tree.  Festival MC Dave Vieser was there when the storm hit its peak.  Vieser, who used to broadcast weather at the Weather Channel, says Friday's storm was one of the two worst storms he has ever personally experienced.

Veaner spent the the evening on the phone in the dark with a flashlight, first trying to arrange for the festival could be moved indoors.  When it was clear there was no alternative at such short notice and that the park would not be safe the next day, the decision was made to postpone the event for a week.  Meanwhile other Lansing Community Council members were at the park, trying to salvage what they could.  What they found was a community that had taken matters into their own hands, putting limbs and branches into neat piles.


Colt says that the damage to Myers Park could have been a lot worse.  He says power was restored to the park later that night, while some homeowners had to wait over a day before their lights came back on.  "We only lost two or three trees," Colt says.  "It's the limbs and branches that come down.  Some of those can be large and dangerous.  We had to call a tree service to remove a couple of trees."

"Patrick Tyrrell, Charlie Nedrow, Wayne Straw, Sherm Tobey and Nathan Allen -- all our crew did an outstanding job getting it ready.  They dug back in again this week to try to get it back into condition," Colt says.  "That doesn't include the number of people that volunteered... all the campers at the camp sites that pitched in, and countless other people that just started to drag the debris into piles.  There is no way the festival could have been this weekend without all the people who pitched in.  That says a lot for the people who live in this town and use the park."


But safety concerns meant postponing the festival.  Colt says that aging trees might snap a limb without actually falling until a day or two later.  Five telephone poles near the Lansing schools had snapped, and power to the high school, which could have offered an indoor location for the festival, was out.  Additionally the storm blew out some of the windows in the school.  Veaner checked with WHCU's Dave Vieser on the weather forecast, and indications were that a similar front, possibly worse than the one on Friday, would be coming the next day.  Organizers also felt that those who came would be distracted by the damage at their own homes.

The biggest problem when rescheduling an event of this size... well, there is no biggest problem.  They're all big.  In this case everyone has done what they can to make it happen.  The Burns Sisters and Tom Knight and the Blue Moon agreed to play on the alternate date, rearranging their playing times to fit their schedules.  The Backtalk Band had another performance that day, but helped organizers book Pete Panek and the Blue Cats to take their spot.  With Cindy Howell unavailable, Lucas Hibbard agreed to conduct the Lansing Cabaret.


Town employees did their utmost to get the postponed festival on track, first by making sure the park would be available, rearranging pavilion rentals that had been set for that week.  The park crew had done an outstanding job of getting Myers Park ready last Friday.  With all that work literally blown away, they got back to work preparing for September 1.  The Supervisor's office helped with arrangements and printing new posters.  All their contributions can't be listed except to say they were considerable.


All but one vendor have said they will be able to be at the festival September 1.  And volunteers whocan't make the Labor Day sate handed off their responsibilities to new volunteers to insure that all the planned events will occur.  Dave Vieser interviewed Veaner on WHCU, and reran the interview to make sure as many people as possible would learn of the postponement, as well as rerecording a PSA to explain the postponement. 

Meanwhile LCC volunteer Jean Gerbasi was at the park entrance with Recreation Department employee June Smith, turning away a steady stream of cars full of people who hadn't heard the news, and encouraging them to come a week later.

There were some funny moments as the week drew nearer to the new festival date.  Veaner ordered new vinyl dates for the two signs on the corner of Ridge and Myers Roads that point people to the festival.  She got a call from the printer the next day to say she would have to make an extra trip to proof the signs because they were so big.  After an awkward pause she noted that the little signs were only 5 and a half by 16 inches to cover up the old date on the signs with the new date.  The printer replied, 'Oh am I glad I called!'  She thought the signs were to be 5.5 feet by 16 feet!


Remarkably few glitches have popped up, and while it has been a very busy week for the organizers, it looks as if even the weather is planning to cooperate.  In fact the storm may have done everyone a favor.  With temperatures well into the 90s and humidity close to the same, it would have been an uncomfortable day last Saturday.  Forecasts for this Friday predict a mostly sunny day with a high around 80 degrees and light winds.  A perfect day for a festival.

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