Just a little more than a month after Hurricane Sandy reeked havoc on the East Coast, Greg Drum recalls being humbled by Mother Nature’s force.
Drum, who has served since May 2010 as the Crane Lake area ranger with Voyageurs National Park, left Borderland just one day after the hurricane struck, causing millions of dollars of damage and resulting in the deaths of more than 60 people.
“I have never seen a natural disaster,” he said. “I was in awe driving through the neighborhoods and seeing the damage. Houses in neighborhoods were gutted and people were just throwing their furniture out on the curb. The sanitation departments were working continuously and the parking lots were makeshift landfills. It was quite a sight.”
Voyageurs National Park sent three ranger staff, including Drum, to the disaster. As of last week, one VNP ranger remains on disaster duty serving as an incident commander. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources staff also were sent to assist.
Drum arrived Nov. 4 and spent 14 days assisting in the disaster relief as part of the Midwest Special Event and Tactical Team, which includes he and another Voyageurs park ranger. The team is made up of 12 park service staff and is called into action to serve at park service units during special events that draw large numbers of people and to disasters. Drum’s team relieved park police from their duties to allow them to handle their personal needs caused by the storm.
The disaster became obvious more than 100 miles away from it, he said, describing seeing long lines of vehicles waiting to purchase gas. As he traveled closer to the disaster area, he joined convoys of trucks carrying electrical linemen, tree cutters and the machinery they needed to clear streets while at the same time seeing long lines of traffic heading away from the area.
“We were watching convoy after convoy going in and here I am, heading right into it when everybody else was trying to get out,” he said.
The visit would mark Drum’s first to New York. He reported to the Staten Island’s Gateway National Recreation Area, which is near other park service units that overlap New York and New Jersey. He was lodged at Fort Wadsworth, a park service unit and U.S. Coast Guard base.
Drum said the team performed an eclectic mix of duties from 12-14 hours each day assisting various agencies, he said.
Duties included escorting fuel trucks into Fire Island National Seashore and other nearby park service units to protect them from getting lost or hijacked. And, he said, he handled some personal needs of park service staff, including helping a park police officer obtain a new gun after her gun, secured in a locker at the Statue of Liberty, was lost in flooding. The team also provided 24-hour security to park service maintenance facilities “so people wouldn’t be tempted to remove equipment.”
“We even did presidential security detail when Pres. Obama came in,” he said. “We did perimeter security and that was pretty cool.”
One day, Drum’s team were tasked with finding boats — including million dollar yachts — that had been washed from a nearby marina into the woods. “They were smashed, upended and twisted,” he said.
At the marina, he said tunnels of sand were created by plows attempting to clean up the area.
Witnessing the huge response by the Red Cross and FEMA was “pretty amazing,” he said. “It was quite the scene looking at the different encampments.”
Drum said the National Park Service’ response was also impressive. He said at one point he was told that about 8 percent of the entire National Park Service staff had been sent to assist in the disaster. “And it’s still ongoing,” he said last week. “They are still asking for more resources.”
Drum said he’s served on the SETT for a couple years and was sent last year to the nation’s southern border, where he assisted in parks near Tucson. He said he’s also assisted in St. Louis during a Fourth of July event and in the last two years has assisted during Occupy Movement activities at St. Louis.
“It energizes you,” he said of his work on the team. “You work with a group of professional rangers and it is nice to get out and see how other parks work and its always motivating,” he said, adding that selection for the team is challenging and he attended training last year in Georgia.
“It knocks you out of your routine and you come back fresh,” he said of the team service. “It’s fun, but it’s hard work.”
Drum is not new to law enforcement, he served as a police officer in Barrow, Alaska, and has worked as a seasonal law enforcement ranger prior to becoming a full-time ranger at Voyageurs.
