Can you help out? 
     
    
   
   
    
     Although the Long Point Bird Obser- 
     
     vatory is a long way from Prince 
     
     Edward Island, Natural History So— 
     
     ciety members may have heard about 
     
     some of the problems that high 
     
     water levels have caused at the 
     
     Lake Erie reserve. A disastrous 
     
     storm on December 1 & 2 totally 
     
     destroyed the field station at the 
     
     tip of Long Point. 
     
    

    
     The LPBO has done a lot of important work at their banding stations 
     
     monitoring migrations since 1960 and continue to introduce many visitors 
     
     to the nature and joys of Long Point. Plans to upgrade one facility into 
     
     field headquarters and visitor centre have been postponed as priorities 
     
     centre around rebuilding the field station on safer ground. 
     
    

    
     Unusual events in the fall of 1985 led up to the disaster. The lake 
     
     levels in late spring were high, part of the annual cycle caused by 
     
     spring melt which is always followed by a fall from late summer onwards. 
     
     Except for 1985. 
     
    

    
     Dave.Shepherd, an ornithologist at the observatory, gave the following 
     
     report: "Levels did indeed drop for a while but then, ominously, began to 
     
     rise again. The wettest November on record did not help. Neither did the 
     
     high snowfall and wet summer around Lake Superior, the reservoir for the 
     
     Lower Great Lakes, which rose to unprecedented levels. The consequent effect 
     
     on Lake Erie was to raise its level by 50cm above the already high average 
     
     of the previous few years. 
     
    

    
     "The storm of the lst/an December was unusual in two respects. First 
     
     its intensity — stronger than any other in the observatory's history. Sec— 
     
     ondly, the wind direction initially was W/SW which would produce oblique 
     
     waves of diminished height merely scouring the beach. A tidal surge of up 
     
     to 1.5m accompanies such an increase in winds from that quarter and an eye- 
     
     witness report confirmed that the tip was completely under water apart from 
     
     dune areas. Thus the full height and fury of those mighty waves (reported 
     
     at 20—25ft. in mid—lake) must have been unleashed directly at the dunes and 
     
     the building beyond with catastrophic results." 
     
    

    
     Dunes were completely devoured, trees were downed and buildings moved 
     
     or destroyed. After a helicopter ride to the site, Mr. Shepherd faced this 
     
     sight: "In a daze, totally shattered by the utter desolation of the scene, 
     
     ... I wandered along the 130m to the original location of the cabin, now 
     
     just a thin strip of beach. All that remained were a few bent pilings, the 
     
     new shoreline (18m from its position ten days before) running through them 
     
     ... Behind, the warden's garden, so carefully nurtured over the years to 
     
     provide a haven for migrants, was now a tangled wreck of snow fence and 
     
     fallen trees. Further on lay the skeleton of the garage, more recently used 
     
     as a storage shed, a condensed and twisted mess of steel supports. 
     
    

    
     "In the distance we could see where the s. dune now started — to the W 
     
     of the Heligoland trap! The storm had ripped out over 250m of up to 5m high 
     
     sand dune and washed it to a varying extent into the ponds and across the 
     
     point. The majority of our former recording area was now beach! 
     
    

    
     "The Heligoland Trap itself was a sad sight. With no protective dune, 
     
     flotsam had crashed through large sections of the netting. The catching area, 
     
     so painstakingly rebuilt during the year and so successful, lay at a sick 
     
    
   
   
    
     _ 9 _