Mona Cox spent the last week of September 2024 looking forward to a Girl Scout camp out at Camp Tanglewood in Martinez.
Instead, the youth coordinator for the Girl Scouts of Historic Georgia woke up Sept. 27, 2024, to the devastation of Hurricane Helene, which downed hundreds of trees as well as destroyed cabins and other structures on the 180-acre campground in its wake.
“I cried when I saw video,” she said. “There were trees right through the cabins.”
Tree and debris removal from the camp was the focus for the remainder of 2024 and much of 2025. By December 2025, power still had not been restored to some parts of Tanglewood.
Just before Thanksgiving, the roof was replaced on the Earnie Graham cabin. A longtime Girl Scout council employee, Graham was featured on the television show “Extreme Makeover” in 2010. During the renovations to her home, the crew built a cabin next to the lodge.
A tree went through the center of the Earnie Graham cabin.
The camp features three sites or units; several cabins were destroyed and the bathhouse in Unit 2 was damaged. A wishing well was also destroyed.
A ridge of trees which once provided a barrier from Columbia Road has dramatically thinned, and cars can be seen from inside the campground.
Uncovered during the storm was a large rock near the pond. An etching reads “1936 Tanglewood, Forget Me Not.”
Much of the rebuilding will start in January, according to Wesley Barney, part time camp ranger.
Unit 1 is expected to receive three new cabins, and the counselor in training cabins will be rebuilt.
Some of the spaces have already come back into use. The lodge has been used for meetings and a holiday party.
And the rest of camp should be ready for summer camp in June 2026.
Charmain Z. Brackett, the publisher of Augusta Good News and Inspiring: Women of Augusta, has covered Augusta’s news for more than 35 years. She’s won multiple Georgia Press Association awards and is the recipient of the 2018 Greater Augusta Arts Council’s media award. Reach her at charmain@augustagoodnews.com. Sign up for the newsletter here.
