The Great Flood of 2023
On the morning of July 19, 2023 Camp Ondessonk woke up under 6 feet of flood water. As counselors and campers slept soundly in the night, a massive storm had swept through the heart of The Shawnee National Forest leaving many to navigate to high flood waters in the morning, these are their stories.
The Night Before
On Tuesday evening, traditional campers put on the darkest clothes from head to toe and covering themselves with ash before heading out into the woods to play Camp Ondessonk’s Tuesday Night Game.
The sky was clear, the moon was full, and the air was still. But this moment of fun and chaos would only be the calm before the store. As the night grew darker and campers and staff fell asleep, clouds would creep in and thunder began to shake the cabins.
The Morning Of
Camp Ondessonk was built at the bottom of a valley in between a bluff and around Lake Echon, their boating lake, with five female tradition on the east side and four male traditional units on the west side. As the rain began to fall the water from the surrounding area trickled down the valley into Lake Echon whose water began to rising and quickly took over most of the trails and roads around Camp Ondessonk.
On the west side of the lake, most of the male traditional units woke up with minor flooding and were able to make up to the Dining Hall for breakfast at 7:45 a.m, but what the male staff and campers did not know is that the East Side of the lake, which is built lower in the valley, was trapped in 6 feet on water.
For the female staff sleeping on the east side, deep in the valley trapped between a bluff line and Lake Echon, woke up to a soft pitter-pattering of rain on the roofs of their cabins. As counselors began to rise they realized how trapped they indeed were in the moment.
Lalande, was lucky enough to be able to use the stairs from the tree houses to get to higher ground. But Goupil, Chabanel, Lalemant, and Garnier were met with rapid flood waters that took out their out houses and also covered the trails and roads that would lead to them to higher ground.
Goupil
In the unit of Goupil, 12 female staff members huddled together around their radio listening to further directions from Camp Ondessonk’s administration team, on how and when to start evacuating their campers. While they waited and listened, they looked below their treehouses to see their outhouse had been lifted out of its foundation and tipped on its side.
Our Boating Coordinator, Maddie Tekiela, was living in Goupil the week and had left seven of the camp’s canoes out on the beach the night before to be ready for the campers coming in the morning. But as reality began to seep in she realized that her boats had been swept away by the rapids in Lake Echon.
Chabanel
Lalemant
The staff in Lalemant was debating how to navigate the flood waters to get their camper with cystic fibrosis to the health center for her breathing treatment. They debated having the health center drive up to the Packentuck road, which is a mile uphill or to wait and hope for the best and walk their camper through breathing exercises until they could evacuate.
Camp Administration radioed the unit leader, Tristen Payne, and had her and her staff walk her camper through breathing exercises for two more hours until they camper could reach the health center at 10:38 a.m.
Garnier
The unit of Garnier is located directly next to Lake Echon where it begins to flow into our spillway, which left the campers and staff living in the unit to figure out how to navigate the level 5 rapids that were sweeping just below their cabins.
As campers found ways to entertain themselves with uno, card games, and creating skits for their Friday night campfire, staff ventured out to the rapids to experience them for themselves.
The Dining Hall
As the morning progressed and the afternoon crept in Camp Ondessonk’s administration team gave the go ahead to all units on the east side to make their way to the dining hall. As campers evacuated from their units, they made their way up to the up the hill for a much awaited breakfast.
As the day went on the and the water began to recede, staff and campers alike realized the sheer amount of luck we had to have had for every person on camp property to be safe and well.
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