Stanley Park: It Really Is That Bad

Have you been to Stanley Park lately? It's as bad as they say it is. Worse actually, parts of it look like a clearcut. I finally managed to get down to there this weekend to check it out for myself - and friends, they weren't kidding, it really is like the aftermath of a hurricane.

The area around Prospect Point seems to be the hardest hit; where once the trees were so thick you couldn't see the through them, now you look up and see sky. A lot of sky. It's hard to convey the magnitude of destruction until you see it for yourself. I've read all the news reports and heard the numbers ($9 million in damage at this point) but when I drove through the wreckage this weekend I had a visceral reaction; I felt like I was punched in the gut.

I think we all remember that storm, you know, the really big one amidst all the other pretty big winter storms. I woke up around 3 o'clock in the morning and the wind was so loud I was afraid it would pull the shingles off my roof. I couldn't get back to sleep. When I stood in the middle of the wreckage at Prospect Point all I could think was no wonder I was scared that night. Now that I see the toppled trees in Stanley Park I'm shocked my roof didn't come off. It's a pretty humbling sight. I took lots of photos but none of them capture it at all, this was the only one with a sense of scale. It's pretty sad. And word is the seawall's going to be under construction and off limits for the better part of the year.