a series of storms<\/a> that pummeled not only Columbia County, but\u00a0Dutchess and Ulster counties in New York and\u00a0Litchfield County in Connecticut in recent days.<\/p>\n\u201cBased on the type of damage that occurred, we can certainly estimate that there were wind gusts of 70 to 80 mph,\u201d National Weather Service meteorologist Brett Rathbun said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
So far, crews at the historic site have completed work cleaning up smaller trees near the park\u2019s walking and driving paths.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley said six to 12 mature pine trees that were at least 100 feet tall had fallen, making the work \u201cdifficult and more time-consuming.\u201d A local arborist said removing trees that big requires a team of four to six people.<\/p>\n
The site has brought in reinforcements from among the national park staff at President Franklin D. Roosevelt\u2019s historic home and the Vanderbilt Mansion in Hyde Park. Specialized equipment will be needed, according to O\u2019Malley.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in the process of requesting emergency funding, and we will likely bring in additional (National Park Service) staff to assist with the cleanup and the removal of trees,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Home to Lindenwald Mansion, the site hosts historic tours of the house where Van Buren lived after leaving the White House in 1841 until his death at 79 in 1862.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Malley said that historic structures on the property suffered minimal damage, with the mansion only enduring a broken window pane from a tree branch.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The visitor center, the mansion and the site grounds have been closed since July 3, the day after the storm. O\u2019Malley said she believes work to reopen the site will take less than a month to complete, while an arborist at the site estimated it will take a week to 10 days to remove the larger trees.<\/p>\n
After the work is done, the park can reopen to the public. But the repair process will continue with additional steps needed to replace trees that are \u201cpart of the historic landscape\u201d with similar ones. O\u2019Malley said the site\u2019s arborist noted that any downed tree historically documented to Van Buren\u2019s time will be replaced with one of the same species in the same location.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KINDERHOOK\u00a0\u2014 The Martin Van Buren National Historic Site is closed after dozens of trees were knocked down during…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":920122,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[23],"tags":[746,326855,326856,364155,275397,425,50,159,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-920121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-gcco","tag-hvexp","tag-hvnews","tag-latestnews","tag-local","tag-news","tag-science","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116882532447793165","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}