Fallen trees injure man, destroy fences at dog shelter

AMENIA — Fallen trees, uprooted and splintered during a thunderstorm, injured a man, destroyed fences and damaged a dog kennel at the Animal Farm Foundation facilities in Bangall.

Isaias Nunez was cleaning along a road on the property with Marco Ortiz, another employee of the dog shelter, when the storm rolled in on the afternoon of Thursday, June 19.

“We saw the storm getting stronger,” Ortiz said. “We started talking, ‘we should check for trees.’ That’s when I looked outside the Kubota and I just started screaming ‘run!’”

A branch from a tree just above their utility vehicle had split. The two men ran from the vehicle, but the falling branch caught Nunez and struck his back.

The fallen branch caused some soreness and bruising, Nunez said, but no broken bones. After a short hospital visit, doctors sent Nunez home to rest and heal. He has since returned to work, helping to repair the broken fences and clean up the storm damage that still lingers.

  Uprooted locust trees mangled fences, damaged roofs and knocked down power lines all over the 400 acre farm that houses the Animal Farm Foundation’s shelter.Nathan Miller

The powerful storm uprooted and knocked down branches of dozens of black locust trees on the Animal Farm Foundation’s property and on neighboring properties along Pugsley Hill Road and Shaefer Road. Nikki Juchem, Director of Operations and Public Policy for the shelter, was in a meeting with Executive Director Bernice Clifford and founder Jane Berkey when a tree outside the main office building was struck by lightning and fell on the farm’s donkey enclosure.

“It’s really a miracle that everyone was unscathed, as well as the animals,” Juchem said.

In addition to Nunez’s injuries and the damaged donkey enclosure, fallen trees destroyed the fencing that secured the Animal Farm Foundation’s original kennel yard, fencing for a horse paddock, and poked a hole through the roof and into the ceiling of one of the facility’s dog play rooms.

And more was at risk than just the employees, volunteers, dogs, and other animals already sheltered at the farm. The shelter was expecting about 15 more dogs to arrive shortly after the storm.

“We were fixing up the horse barn to be dog kennels,” Juchem said. “Luckily we had all the extra space, because we would have been in a real pickle.”

All the dogs that were being kept in the original kennel building had to be moved to the newly renovated kennels so the noisy repairs wouldn’t bother them, Juchem said. Fosters stepped up to house dogs that couldn’t fit while necessary repairs were being completed, too.

  A log stuck on a fence post outside the shelter’s kennel building.Nathan Miller

“Lots of damage but we had a lot of support from the community,” Juchem said. “We had contractors come out immediately to start cutting down trees and helping us out with the cleanup, so we’re doing OK now.”

The cleanup and repair process is ongoing, but Juchem said the total cost is still unclear.

Animal Farm Foundation is a nonprofit dog shelter with a focus on “pit bulls,” Juchem said. “Breed is not behavior,” she said, emphasizing the organization’s guiding philosophy. More information on volunteering, donating to the shelter, or adopting a dog is available online at www.animalfarmfoundation.org

The Animal Farm Foundation will be collaborating with the North East Community Center Farmers Market to bring adoptable dogs to the market every Saturday during the month of August.