The rains came to Kendallville Park--and then their tents disappeared

Dorothy Buckendahl wants her tents back.  The Sumner woman was camping recently with family members at the Kendallville Park when the weather took a turn for the worse--much worse.

"It was bad," she said on Monday--especially because some 20 family members were still kayaking on the Upper Iowa River.  By the time those relatives in their teens and 20s got back to the campground it had started raining hard--harder than she had seen it rain in a long time.  So she wasn't surprised when the order came to evacuate the park.

Her family put the kayaks into some trucks, but left behind four tents they had been using, driving out of the campground and taking a different route home because the road had flooded in one direction.

But when Dorothy and her family came back to the campground the next night, they discovered "all the tents were gone."  Apparently the campground manager had moved all four tents to a location near one of the restrooms.  Dorothy searched the campground and discovered one of the four tents was underneath a camper.  The other three tents were gone, including one brand new tent.

On Monday Colene Colby and Dorothy Buckendahl appeared before county supervisors to ask for help in getting the tents back--or getting reimbursed for the cost of buying replacement tents.  Unfortunately, they had picked the wrong board to visit--Kendallville Campground is operated by Winneshiek County Conservation, which has its own budget and its own board.  The two women say they'll take their case to the other board in the future.