During lunch today, we were talking about storms that were a challenge on the golf course. Our team is comprised of individuals who have been employed by the club between 2 years to 21 years, so between all of us, we can recall several of these storms. Of course Chuck Craine (71 years) and Rickey Holland (30 years), both no longer with us, sound a little more impressive in terms of how long they worked at Highlands CC. Regardless, I thought back to my time at HCC and the various clean up efforts we faced. Specifically Hurricane Ivan, which was far more destructive than Hurricane Irma. Ivan made landfall on September 16, 2004 along the gulf coast. This tends to be the path of the most devastating hurricanes for Western NC. Those that make landfall along the NC or SC coast usually don't create much of an issue for us. I tried to find historical statistics for these storms and found some information. If you recall, Ivan was bad because we not only had wind gusts of 60-70mph, but the storm dumped nearly 20" of rain during that week. This led to mudslides and severe erosion in many areas around Macon County. On the golf course, this storm did a number on many of our creek banks in terms of erosion. On #1 and #10 for example, the shape of those creeks and banks were forever altered by that one event. That is a lot of water to handle in a one week period! While I don't remember specifically how many trees we lost during Ivan, it was in the 30-40 range and the golf course was closed for approximately 4 days while we cleaned up. I also remember going nearly 10 days without mowing any grass because it was too wet.
Above, Irma path
Below, Ivan path
Above, Irma path
Below, Ivan path
The recent Hurricane Irma caused us to lose 12 trees, brought 3.5" of rain and shut the course down for 1.5 days. I haven't been able to confirm this, but the rumor is the wind speed reached gusts of 55mph last night. Again, in my opinion, this storm didn't do near the damage to the golf course that Ivan did.
Probably the most destructive storm in The Club's history was Hurricane Opal, which occurred in early October 1995. While I personally didn't experience this one, I've heard from many that the tree loss total was well over 100 and included some important, majestic trees. The open area between the 5th green and Cobb Road, for example, used to be a stand of white pines. Opal is responsible for all of them disappearing. Past employees would say it took months for that clean up effort to wrap up because of the large volume of logs and debris that needed to be hauled off site. Opal's winds reached 70-80 mph according to those in Highlands. With our elevation of 4,000ft above sea level, the weather is always more pronounced than it is even just 10 miles off the mountain. The elevation tends to bring weather extremes and leaves the course exposed to those conditions.
