The eastern side of the eye of Hurricane Ivan’s fury plowed through the 66-acre Camp Baldwin of Baldwin Baptist Association — while many of its staff members were riding out the storm on campus.
Although one staff trailer was literally “cut in half” by a large tree, according to camp director David Payne, no one was inside. He said part of the staff had gathered inside a new multipurpose building, which was built to withstand hurricane-force winds up to 140 mph.
“You could hear the roof beams creaking as they stretched from the force of wind, but the building stood firm,” Payne said. “I thought it was worse than [Hurricane] Frederick (1979) — at least here where we were. It just kept coming and coming.”
The 13 people peered out at times from the building to watch winds taking down tree after tree. More than 100 trees, most of them large oaks or pines, crashed to the ground across the campus, but no buildings were hit.
“The oaks and pines have been here a long time, creating so much ambience on the campus. But trees can be replaced — in time,” he said.
None of the trees fell into the prayer garden, allowing a prayer bench and cross to remain unscathed, noted Marsha Graham, receptionist/reservationist for the camp. Graham was on campus during the storm.
The campus also lost the pier that stretched out into Wolf Bay and its bridge over Wolf Bay.
While the storm raged outside, slight water damage occurred from leakage around windows and doors in the hurricane-proof building, which houses offices, a kitchen, gymnasium and conference rooms.
Even as Camp Baldwin officials regroup and clean up, the campus is serving as housing for disaster relief, power and telephone company volunteers in the area.
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