The Southern Forest Heritage Museum at Long Leaf, LA managed to escape any major damage despite 90 mph winds from Laura, and 60 mph winds from Delta. However, there were many trees down, mostly across the tracks of the Red River and Gulf RR. At our work weekend three weeks ago we cleaned part of the main line. The Loop track was cleaned by crews from the US Forest Service who came to help. This weekend we will clear the remaining portion of the railroad that we can access.

However, we had major rains this spring which either washed out or collapsed a culvert on the RR&G main line north of Long Leaf. We had hopes of doing some sort of temporary fix, but 27 inches of rain from Laura, Beta and Delta have done significantly more damage to the fill to the point where we will have to either dig down to the culvert and replace it, or dig a valley through the fill in some way that we will have stability to install an permanent bridge.

Pictures of all of this may be seen on the RR&G website www.redriverandgulf.net.

Because access to the fill is limited to the railroad, we need to locate a back hoe or track hoe with high rail capability, that we can rent or someone would loan to the museum for a week or two. If anyone out there knows someone that we can contact in the Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas area that can help us, please post here or PM me.