Hurricane Ida 2021 Clean Up

At the beginning of September 2021, Mother Nature decided to drop a significant storm on the Eastern part of the U.S. Luckily for the Southern New England region, what began as a Category 3 Hurricane became a tropical storm. However, the storm brought just over 7 inches of rain and damaging winds that resulted in a huge mess to be cleaned up afterward.

Here at Wanumetonomy, the damage consisted of completely washed out bunkers that were still filled with water, most of them to the brim, some downed limbs, and tons of debris all over the course from flooding ponds and creeks. 6 Fairway had what could only be referred to as a small river flowing across it, which washed out a section of our dump/waste area and deposited a lot of silt, sand, clay, rocks, and debris across the fairway. 7 Tee was completely under water, while a section of the fence along the right side of that hole completely washed out and deposited a massive pile of rocks and silt into the rough in front of the tee. Finally, the rain pushed so much water through our the drain ditches that a significant part of the ditch going from 15 to 8 was washed all the way down to 8. This resulted in another massive deposit of rock and silt which almost blocked the water from running out, but luckily the water found its way around it instead of flooding into 8 fairway.

The Storm concluded on Thursday, and we got right to work pumping out and repairing bunkers and cleaning up downed limbs and debris all over the course. Other areas needed to wait so that we could get the bunkers to a playable condition again. Once the bunkers were in satisfactory condition, we moved on to issues such as 6 fairway, large downed limbs, and rock/silt deposits.

The clean up efforts were a trial, but we managed to get the course back to playing conditions by the weekend. Here are some pictures to illustrate the damage and the Grounds Team's efforts.

Our main pond overfilled with rainwater

Ponds on 15 and 16 draining out into the ditch

Assistant Superintendent Tyler Hemingway pumping out a bunker (Top). Section of fence on the right of hole 7 that washed out (Bottom).

The right greenside bunker on 13 (Above). Perfectly exemplifies what all of our bunkers looked like after Ida.

7 Tee flood/debris

7 Tee

Rock/silt deposit in front of 7 Tee

6 Fairway looking towards 6 Tee

6 Fairway looking across

A river from the storm flowing into the ditch on 15 (Top). Left greenside bunker on 11 filled with water (Bottom)

A view from the nursery green/chipping area... puddles and rivers across 3 and 15 fairway

Hurricane Ida washed out the ditches here at Wanumetonomy. This picture shows the end of the ditch on the right of hole #8 where it drains out towards the Navy Base. There was so much rain and erosion that it deposited huge amounts of silt and rock. This resulted in a blockage and accumulated to a point that forced us (Grounds Team) to remove much of that material to allow for the ditches to drain properly. We don't normally have our mini-excavator on the course during the season, but circumstances were extreme!