Campers at the Boundary Waters Caught in Major Storm Last Week

Last week, a group of 4 dads and their 5 sons went on a camping trip up in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) where an extremely intense storm took them by surprise. They say that they got super lucky.

One of the dads in the group, Dave Bell, spoke with KARE 11 about the scary experience. He said the storm came out of nowhere and hit where they were camping at about 7:30 on Wednesday night.

Dave guessed that the winds were probably 60-70 mph. “'It felt like someone was blowing a fire hose at us and trees started to topple.'” He said that three of the guys in the group huddled under a tarp they had, including Dave, and the rest of the group piled into two of the 5 tents they had.

Eventually, the tree the tarp was connected to fell, and Dave, still holding onto the tarp, was lifted off the ground like a kite. By what Dave says is a miracle, the only tents that were seriously damaged were the three that no one was in.

In the morning the guys got all the water out of their canoes, packed up, and headed home, sadly, 4 days earlier than they had planned.

That must have been such a scary experience! I have been in a tent when a severe storm comes through but it was never anything like that, and I thought the storms I went through were scary.

Dave told KARE 11 that he believes the group survived because of sheer luck and says that was definitely a near-death experience.