LINCOLNTON, Ga. (WJBF) – Elijah Clark State Park is almost fully open now after it was closed due to damage from a severe storm two weeks ago.

According to the National Weather Service, there were between 85 and 100 mile per hour straight line winds that came through the park, knocking down more than 100 trees.

They had to evacuate campers the following day due to no power or running water.

Michael Collier, the park manager, said utilities were back up and running within 72 hours and campers were then able to return.

He tells NewsChannel 6 the park is 90% open.

“Everything’s looking a lot better than it did two weeks ago,” Collier said. “The only area that remained closed are our walk-in camping, group shelter number one, and the bath house over in walk-in camping – massive damage over there. We’re still assessing it, there’s probably at least forty trees still down in that area.”

Camp volunteers that were there during the storm said there was no way for weekend campers to be prepared.

“Some don’t have fresh water tanks, they don’t fill them up because they’re not expecting anything like that,” said Carolyn Smith. “To us, it was too sudden to go knock on doors to let anybody know, you need to go to the bathroom or anything.”

Camp volunteers that arrived after the storm are thankful they missed it – but are helping out where they can.

“Everybody has really pitched in, and the hosts that were here, they’ve really done a fantastic job at helping,” Amy Gooden said. “I think everybody’s pitched in and helped, and as a host you’re a volunteer but you kind of do what you wanna do. As far as do you really wanna step in and help, and most people do.”

Collier said there were at least 50-60 people from nearby agencies helping with clean-up.

“We are very thankful for everybody involved, especially thankful that there were no injuries involved. You can replace property but you can’t replace people,” he said. “And we are very, very thankful to our DNR leadership, all the way from the commissioner down to the director, and the board of directors who came down to help.”

Collier said all areas of the park should be open by the end of next week.