Portage teen captures drone footage of park damaged by tornado
PORTAGE, Mich. (WOOD) — Drone video taken by a Portage teen shows some of the wreckage caused by last week’s tornado in Portage, including several downed trees and areas of a park that were damaged.
The video was taken by a Portage middle school student who wants to help his community recover.
“The day after the major tornado in Portage, I decided to take my drone out to Celery Flats and took it up and flew it around and it was honestly just terrible seeing all of the disaster,” said 14-year-old Jackson Seguin.
Preliminary assessment: Portage tornado destroyed 60 buildings
Seguin is a huge biker and used the Celery Flats park trails often. His drone video shows the devastation after the EF2 tornado left Celery Flats shaken.
“Seeing tree after tree be knocked down is just terrible,” Seguin said.
A line clearly shows the path the tornado took through Celery Flats.
“It was just this beautiful park with fountains and everything was perfect. There was not paint missing. All the bushes were trimmed routinely. It was an amazing park in Portage,” said Seguin.
Many people are saddened to see Celery Flats in this condition.
“It used to be this luscious almost jungle of trees and now it’s just bare insides of trees and even when you are there it smells like garbage and broken trees. It just smells like it when you’re in a wood shop,” Seguin said.
Being able to assess the damage and help community members is how Seguin is contributing to rebuilding Portage.
“My church, I say, bagged about 100 sack lunches and it’s honestly great just seeing my community bunch up. Even tonight just driving we saw a bunch of a team called Rubicon, which are vets staying in basements on cots. And it’s just nice seeing our community no matter what it is, even if it’s just drones or getting in with chainsaws, helping to make our city great again,” said Seguin.
News 8 reached out to the director of Parks and Recreation with the city of Portage this week. She said team members are taking the week to assess the damage. The city plans to make repairs to Celery Flats once a comprehensive assessment and plan is made.
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