(Photos) Tornado Update: Theodore Wirth Park Before and After

According to most reports, the tornado that devastated north Minneapolis in late May in Golden Valley.

Damaging winds hit parts of the Tyrol Hills neighborhood, , where the playground was destroyed and many trees uprooted.

But the most damage sustained in Golden Valley happened .  Theo Wirth Parkway was shut down for nearly two days as crews from Minneaoplis and Golden Valley, as well as cities like St. Paul, got to work

Now, more than a month later, the Minneapolis Park Board is still assessing damage and says it can't be sure when we'll see things get back to normal.

In just seconds on May 22, a tornado caused a line of storm damage that seemed to follow a path roughly from the bog parking lot, to the Eloise Butler entrance road to the beach parking lot, then across the lake to the golf course and east edge of the park.

Much of the physical damage excluding tree loss occurred in the Wirth Lake area.  The boardwalk that used to envelope the swimming area was thrown and destroyed, and . (See before and after pictures in the photo gallery)

Before May 22, Theo Wirth's was spending time looking at how to improve the park- from adding a dog park to creating more trails.  Now the committee will be looking at damage from the tornado and advising the Minneapolis Park Board on what should top the priority list.

In an email to the committee members last week, Andrea Weber, a project manager with the park board, gave her assessment on what's been done and what needs attention.

The following is Weber's message to the committee:

Phase 2: (beach and playground improvements- mostly completed in 2010) the arc boardwalk was essentially destroyed, toilet enclosure destroyed, lighting damaged, picnic table shelters damaged, shade shelters damaged, tree caused walk damage. Though there was debris and some washed out areas of sand surfacing, the playground appears to be undamaged. The beach house may have had some minor roof damage from flying debris and the historic marker about the Aqua Follies was damaged.

 Phase 3: (trail loop, parking lot and wetland enhancement) Trees down in the way of beach improvements (11trees) and on west side of lake trail reconstruction area (estimated 100 trees). Two pontoons, a portable toilet and tools were lost which belonged to the boardwalk installer. A few materials were blown into the lake from the north boardwalk and some minor wind damage occurred to the partially installed boardwalk sections. Fortunately, many improvements were not installed yet and thus escaped damage.

 Outside of the lake area, we have been working to clear trees from trails planned to be used for camps and upcoming events. Approximately 100 trees were cleared from the trail north of Hwy 55 along the east edge of the park. The trail surface, which was already in poor condition, has been further damaged by equipment and wet soils, however. Another 50 +/- trees were down in the SW Wirth area which caused some damage to the retaining wall and split rail fence along the parkway. Another 20-30 trees were down in the EBWG entry road, along the trail toward the spring and toward Glenwood.

 Also, the Rockwood Oak, on the West central shore of the lake was substantially damaged. Forestry has evaluated it and will try to do some pruning and see if it will survive a few more decades. They were able to estimate the age of this tree, which is listed as a heritage tree on our forestry website, at around 314 years old. The tree had developed a crack near the crown and this crack was where large branches broke off, so it was something hurried along by the storm.

 Some of you may have seen other areas with damage that I have not listed. If you have additional information, questions or concerns about issues related to storm damage at Wirth, please forward them to me and I will look into them. I will provide another update at the next CAC meeting as well.

The next meeting will take place in July, and if you have questions for Golden Valley's representative on the committee, you can reach out to or check out his blog here on Patch where he posts news and notes from the park.