What's up at Dhamma Sukha and Anathapindika's Study Park?                       2009 Fall Picture Boards

Building Progress - Novice Monk Ceremony - Novice Monk's Life - Big Storm - Meeting new Friends - Japan - Nuns - Nature
 

The Big Storm ..

Kuti #1 was the most severely damaged. The Kuti was rebuilt with a shotened loft space. There is still a bed up there. 

  Buddy just wanted to know when it was OK to come out?

Andrew, our contractor's son, came to help with the clean-up. He gave comfort to BEAR the Labrador Retriever who helps us all smile.

Jerry had a real time clearing the roads in the center. An estimated over 888,000 trees went down in the storm. 

The Wind hit over 100 miles per hour through the Forest trees who had no deep roots to hold on with. After long years of drought and then heavy rains, evey tree fell easily to the ground or was twisted off by the small tornados that rushed through following the high wind.

Sister Khema looks on while a neighbor tries to push down a large tree without it falling onto JOY Kuti in the monk's area.

Sis. Khema and Venerable had gone to the airport just 25 minutes before the storm hit the center! It took 2 hours to get to the airport and then 6 1/2 hours to return back to the center.

Kirt Friese gave of his time to help lift out tree roots that were pushing up Venerable's roof and tearing up the cement porch.

Kirt and his crew spent hours removing trees off  buildings that were highly endangered . Without his help that night, we could have lost far more.

Returning to the center, the roads were blocked in the center. 

The near misses on the property were what was more impressive! Trees missed by only inches of crushing many buildings.  This tree did not touch the red building.

It took over $10,000 to clean-up from the storm. FEMA helped to recoup some of the damage costs. The delay in time hurt how much teaching could be done this summer and many people cancelled their June retreats after the storm hit. Many have rescheduled in September and October ! This is great.