MPR’s Bob Kelleher takes a look back on the one year anniversary of BWCA blowdown, and what has happened since.

On July 4, 1999, wilderness campers and vacationers in and around Northeast Minnesota's Superior National Forest were startled to see a looming black line of clouds darken the sky. It was a massive storm that over the next few hours flooded homes, blew out highways, and dropped millions of trees across the forest and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Scores of people were injured, while the popular camping and canoe wilderness was forever changed.

The Boundary Waters–Canadian Derecho (also called the Boundary Waters Blowdown), produced straight-line winds of up to 100 mph, which uprooted and toppled nearly 500,000 acres of the BWCA's trees in a massive blowdown. It began in Fargo mid-morning on July 4, 1999, and plowed at a northeasterly angle across the state. It mowed across northeastern Minnesota, crossed into Canada, and fizzled out in Maine the following morning, traveling 1,300 miles and lasting 22 hours.