Western Townships Sustain the Worst Damage
The roar of generators and the buzz of chain saws echoed around Geauga County Aug. 7 and 8 as residents dealt with the aftermath of four tornadoes that tore through Northeast Ohio Tuesday evening.
The roar of generators and the buzz of chain saws echoed around Geauga County Aug. 7 and 8 as residents dealt with the aftermath of five tornadoes that tore through Northeast Ohio Tuesday evening.
The National Weather Service reported one EH-1 tornado cut a swath through Kirtland, Chester Township and ended at Wilson Mills Road in Munson Township.
Chester Hit Hardest
“I watched the Chesterland tornado rip through our pasture as we went to the basement,” Robert Ciszak commented on a Facebook post. “Rain was coming through closed windows like they weren’t there. In the end — Boulder Glen is decimated. Hundreds of trees down, two houses (ours included) with trees on them or in them. We had two vehicles crushed. Our street has worked together and we have a lot cleaned up from what it was — but there’s 30 years of damage done.”
Chester was hit hardest in the county. At one point, so many trees came down across electric wires that most of the township was without power, said Chester Township Fire Chief Bill Shaw in a phone interview Aug. 12.
“I’d estimate we were in the 90% range,” he said. “We did have a substantial number of trees down. It’s so forested here, when they come down, they get tangled up in the wires.”
When that happens, the area loses power until the wires can be cleared, he said.
Chester Township Fire Department fielded 53 calls for service in the first six hours after the storm, said firefighter Mike Gibson Aug. 9, adding they had close to 100 storm-related calls by noon last Friday
“We had a lot of trees fall into houses and a lot of electrical problems. It was definitely unusual for us,” he said. “We had crews out throughout the storm handling multiple calls.”
The department coordinated with nearby Russell, Munson and Kirtland fire departments in mutual aid during and after the storm because so many roads were blocked by trees or wires down that trucks couldn’t get to callers, Gibson said.
“We did help one elderly couple get out of their house and navigate their way to a street that was passable,” Shaw said, adding they were picked up by a family member and taken to a safe place.
About the time the high winds hit Chester, the department received a call from a resident in terrible back pain. An ambulance was dispatched, but the crew had to pick its way through falling trees and torrential rain.
“It took an hour and a half to get him to the emergency room. We hadn’t done damage assessment, yet. They were finding (those areas) in the middle of a rain storm with a patient in the back. That was the most harrowing emergency we had,” Shaw said, crediting the fire and rescue staff for their dedication and working long hours to help residents.
As soon as the winds abated, people fired up their chainsaws and cleared a lot of the detritus blocking traffic except where wires were down, Gibson said.
“The residents banned together and cleaned up the roads themselves,” he said. “A lot of nice things happened.”
As noted in other townships, he said there were no reported injuries and the few vehicle accidents they handled were not storm related.
By Aug. 12, most of the power lines were back in place, but some residents with problems on their property might still be dark, Shaw said.
“The dust has settled,” he said.
Chester Township Trustee Ken Radtke added many residents were without power through last Friday.
“There are still a lot of crews here,” he said Monday.
A potable water truck, originally delivering water to farms, parked at the town hall and provided water to residents Friday and Saturday, Radtke said.
Severe Winds Wreak Havoc in County
Elsewhere last Tuesday, winds of up to 90 mph dropped trees on houses, roads and utility lines, closing heavily-traveled Auburn Road south of state Route 87 while crews replaced a pole the wind snapped off, said Newbury Township Fire Chief Ken Fagan.
The top of a utility pole broke off just east of the Auburn-Kinsman intersection in front of the Newbury Volunteer Fire Station, Fagan said, adding the wires and pole were finally removed and repairs made by Friday morning, but the traffic light was still dark.
Most drivers traveling Kinsman found an alternate route past the 100-yard-long closure by cutting through the Newbury Center parking lot where all the businesses were closed due to the power and Internet outage. Some decided to go around the “Road Closed” sign and orange cones.
“Some people drove right over all the wires. We got a call from a woman saying she was stuck on the wires,” Fagan recalled.
The power had been cut to the wires on the road, so there was no danger, but the chief warned, “The cones are there for your safety.”
Before noon last Friday, he said the repair crew was almost done replacing the pole on Auburn across from the power station and sorting out the wires that left much of Newbury without power.
“The blasted and uprooted trees are startling, but I was most shaken when we discovered very large branches — 4-inch diameter — driven 6 to 8 inches into the ground in our front yard,” said Tiffanie Broadbent, of Newbury, in a Facebook post. “The wind must have been tremendous. Thank God we were safe inside. It’s also remarkable to see utter destruction in our front yard while the chairs on our back deck didn’t move at all.”
Bucket trucks were lined up along Kinsman Road to the west last Friday morning where wires were knocked loose by falling trees and high winds Aug. 6.
Kinsman Road west of Munn Road was still closed to state Route 306 in Russell Township last Friday afternoon.
The closures ended up routing a steady stream of traffic down narrow Munn Road to east-west back roads to get to 306.
Fagan said the department received 37 calls for help in the first 24 hours after the storm. The small staff was able to respond to 27 of them and mutual aid from other departments covered the rest, he said.
Trustee Bill Skomrock said he found cell phone reception was affected after the storm and wondered why the top of the utility pole with wires attached lying in the middle of Kinsman Road was not a priority for the repair crews.
“The important thing is no one was hurt,” he said.
Chardon Fire Chief Justin Geiss said the city had extensive power outages, but no structural issues.
“Damage was pretty much limited to trees and wires down,” he said last Friday morning. “Today, about 20% of the city is without power.”
The department has provided a place where residents can charge their phones and neighboring Chardon United Methodist Church served as a comfort station for people without power.
He credited a Claridon Township group with stepping up. Claridon Helps provided hot meals to residents of Geauga Metropolitan Housing Authority Murry Manor.
“They were rock stars,” Geiss said.
Claridon Township Trustee Johnathan Tiber said he was driving when the storm hit his home and he couldn’t get in the driveway because a majestic old sycamore tree fell across it.
Soon, half the neighborhood was revving up their chainsaws.
“Six of my neighbors gathered and helped each other out,” he said. “There’s nothing like extreme weather to bring neighbors together.”
One family lost eight or nine pine trees, one coming to rest in their living room, so neighbors organized a work party to meet Saturday and help with the cleanup, Tiber said, adding he has received texts from Claridon residents offering help for families in distress.
Munson Township resident Kevin Weinbrecht shared similar sentiments about helpful neighbors on Facebook.
“Most excellent neighbors in Novelty helped me to clear the driveway,” he wrote.
Russell Township Assistant Fire Chief Sam Brown said the storm brought on other challenges for the department staff to handle.
Many homes had generators providing enough electricity to keep air conditioning units, freezers and refrigerators operating when the power went down, he said.
In the aftermath of the storm, those generators can exhaust carbon dioxide, CO2 and, if that blows into the house, the CO2 alarms go off.
“Folks use alternative power sources — mobile and fixed generators. It’s not uncommon. We carry gas meters,” Brown said. “We just identify the source, mitigate it and ventilate the house.”
He said the townships along the west end of Geauga County probably saw the most damage.
Besides utility lines coming down, falling trees also damaged natural gas lines on some properties, resulting in leakage and calls to the gas company, Brown said.
Overall, Russell’s department kept very busy.
“We also assess power lines that come down, both residential and on the street. Our call volume was substantially higher than normal,” he said.
Bainbridge Township Fire Chief Lou Ann Metz reported a similar situation there.
“We were busy enough. There were a lot of wires down. We had all kinds of trouble with the Internet,” she said, estimating her department received 10 to 12 calls related to the storm in the first six hours. “We were pretty lucky.”
She said an Ohio Edison spokesperson told her there were more than 248,000 people still without electricity across Northeast Ohio as of last Friday morning.
That number didn’t include many homes or businesses in Middlefield Village.
Middlefield Mayor Ben Garlich said some of the retail stores and restaurants were affected, but the village’s extensive manufacturing base kept its production schedule.
He credited the new electric lines put in a few years ago that provide power to the village.
Otherwise, damage was minimal.
“Everybody got hit harder than we did,” Garlich said.
Candy Lawrence, of Middlefield, recalled hunkering down in the cellar with her Jack Russell Terrier, Lottie, and 14-year-old brother, Skip — who she was babysitting — after receiving several alerts on her phone of an “extreme” and “severe” tornado approaching.
Her later attempt to drive back home to Middlefield took an hour due to massive trees blocking several roads.
“It was comforting that I saw neighbor guys with their chainsaws, pick-up trucks and ‘Get it Done’ efforts pitching together as a community to help clear the roadway,” she wrote on a Facebook post. “That’s the USA mentality that makes me smile.”
Huntsburg Township Trustee Nancy Saunders said the east townships in Geauga didn’t see much damage from the tornado or high winds.
A lot of trees went down, she said last Friday morning, but the township road department cleared them from the roads. Few homes lost power, Saunders said.
She noted about 40% of the township population is Amish who don’t connect to power lines or the Internet.
Troy Township didn’t fare as well, said Trustee Sharon Simms Thursday evening.
“Trees fell across (state Route) 700 and pulled down power lines. A five-foot-across tree fell across Fox Road and two trees fell on a house and a car on Mumford Road,” she said. “Our fire department was very busy. We don’t know when we will get power back.”
A natural gas leak added to the concern, but no fire occurred to complicate the lack of electricity and Internet access, she said.
Like many area residents, Simms has a generator. She said she had to drive to Parkman Township to get gasoline to keep it going and traffic was really backed up.
“We were in the basement and heard (a tree) fall even over the noise of the wind and the generator,” Jackie See Chester, of Troy, posted on Facebook Thursday. “So thankful that it didn’t hit the house or block the drive. We’re still without power.”
Parkman Township Trustee Lance Portman said residents weathered the storm well and the roads were mostly cleared by Tuesday evening.
Situated in the southeast corner of Geauga, Parkman was a county away from the tornado.
“The fire department was busy with calls. I believe they were swamped for about three hours. There were a lot of wires down all over town,” he said, adding residents are busy with chainsaws in yards and woods.
“The cleanup continues,” Portman said.
