After last years Hurricane Irene, an up-rooted fallen tree up-lifted a stone bridge on the Ringwood Ramapo Trail that had been in place for longer than anyone could remember. The large stone remained hanging by a point on the root ball for almost a year until Jorba volunteer, James Bazzano came up with a plan to try and reset the stone onto a new and more stable footing.
James, along with Tom Pannorfi and Art assembled a pallet rack with 2 hoists with a 77 to 2000 lb. advantage to lift the stone and reset it on a new footing. The hoists needed to be re-situated several times by lifting and setting back down the stone until it reached a good placement. This whole process took half a day with assembly and moving.
Afterwards the tree was cut from the root ball, allowing the roots to settle back down and allow safe passage onto the newly placed stone bridge. Within minutes of completion, a frog and giant spider were checking out the new bridge.
A big thanks to James for the vision and know-how to make this happen, and to Tom and Art for lending a hand and volunteering their time and labor on Labor Day of course.
