Area residents clean up
Trees down, power out across the ValleyTribune Chronicle
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As windstorms whipped through the Mahoning Valley Sunday, 9-year-old Samantha Sullivan saw a large tree uprooted and fall against a vacant Porter Street N.E. house next to her home in Warren.
''It made like a cracking noise,'' Sullivan said of the 7:30 p.m. felling.
June Hutchison on Vine Avenue N.E. was cleaning up limbs Monday that had fallen in her yard. She said she was in Hurricane Alexis two years ago when she vacationed at the Outer Banks and Sunday's wind reminded her of that storm.
''The wind was just as bad here as it was then,'' Hutchison said.
Such scenes and stories being repeated throughout the area Monday.
- Trumbull County 911 Director Michael Dolhancryk said the dispatching center in Howland "never missed a beat" during Sunday's windstorm.
He said dispatchers had 115 active calls on their computer screens when the storm first began about 8 p.m. Most of the calls were for downed wires and trees, but there were several fire-related calls caused by fallen power lines, Dolhancryk said.
Three dispatchers on midnight turn were called in early to handle the large volume of calls, which Dolhancryk said totaled more than 800 between 8 p.m. Sunday and 2 a.m. Monday. The center's office phone lines were down Monday because they are connected to the rest of the county administration phones, but the dispatching system is on its own line and was unaffected by the outage.
"We never went down. Our lines may have been overloaded with calls at some points, but we were fully operational throughout the storm," Dolhancryk said.
He also reminded residents not to call 911 to report power outages.
He said he drove home from Kentucky on Sunday and the windstorm followed him all the way up Interstate-71.
- About 20,000 customers in Trumbull and southern Ashtabula counties still were without power the day after the storm, a problem that could take until late-Wednesday or early Thursday to fix.
"There are lots of reports of low-hanging wires in trees. We're reminding everyone that a downed wire is live. It's dangerous. Stay away," said Luann Koch of Ohio Edison.
Some workers were working overnight. As they hit their mandatory rest period, they were replaced with crews from Toledo Edison and Jersey Central Power and Light, she said.
Many customers that are without power are in large groups, meaning that many customers could see their power restored as crews fix the lines in that area, Koch said.
About 142,000 customers were without power between Trumbull, Mahoning Columbiana, Mercer and Lawrence, she said.
Heidi Mock of Time Warner Cable said her company would know how much they had to fix once the power was back on.
"The electric company is in front of us," Mock said. "There was not a lot of fiber damage."
Time Warner customers with power, but without cable were asked to call 877-772-2253.
- In Warren, several trees across the city were cut down by the heavy winds. One of them landed on Diana Hoover's house on York Avenue at about 8 p.m. Sunday.
"The insurance company said it would be maybe 72 hours before they got here," Hoover said, commenting that she wasn't able to do anything about the tree crushing her kitchen roof until then.
Operations crews were busy cleaning up chunks of trees that feel throughout the city on Monday, Warren Safety-Service Director Doug Franklin said. It made up the bulk of the after-storm cleanup.
Franklin said although city safety services handled hundreds of calls in the space of a few hours during the storm, it caused few problems for the city beyond the power outages.
"I'm sure the calls were in the 400 area. We were lucky. There are no injuries reported as of yet, and we've got our fingers crossed. We're blessed that we were able to weather the storm," Franklin said.
The city staffed an additional dispatcher to handle the calls and more workers from the operations department to clean up the city Monday, but otherwise did not call out more fire and police forces to work emergency detail Sunday night. The city has a general ban against using overtime as it deals with a projected budget deficit.
All streets were open for vehicle traffic Monday, but some sidewalks were blocked off because of downed power lines, Franklin said.
The storm was responsible for one fire in the city, according to the city fire department.
About $15,000 in damage was done to a house on 138 Kenilworth Ave. N.E. The fire started in the kitchen, at about 10:32 a.m. where fire fighters say an electric stove was left on during the power outage. There were no injuries
- When Margaret Lavin-Delgado arrived at her business, GNR Repair & Racing, 209 North State St., Girard, at 8:50 a.m. Monday, she was greeted with the sight of part of her neighbor's roof on top of her building.
"I was the first one in, so you can imagine my surprise," she said.
As her partners began coming in, they inspected the damage, determining that much of the material was heavy, 90-weight roofing paper, some gravel and some wood.
"Our neighbor, the owner of the building, came over right away, saying he would take care of any damage that the roof may have caused," she said. "We're worried about the hole, because we have sensitive equipment that could be affected by moisture."
Girard Mayor James Melfi says comparatively to some storms in that came through the area in past years, the city was relatively unscratched.
"We had a flat roof come off of a commercial building on U.S. 422 and two large trees fall blocking the roads on Cherry Street and Walnut Ave." Melfi said. "There also were some electrical lines brought down due to branches falling unto them."
Members of the city's road department were out most of making sure that trees and branches that posed threats to public were removed.
"Any place where there were a lot of trees there was a chance for significant damage," he said. "Surprisingly, there was not a lot of damage in Tod or Liberty Parks. However, the cemetery took quite a hit."
- Trumbull County employees arrived Monday morning at their offices in the Administration Building, Stone Building and the former Park Porter Building to find the buildings without power Monday morning.
Workers waited - many of them outside - to see if power would be restored before being told to head home.
The Courthouse had power and working computers and the Trumbull County Jail where the Sheriff's offices are located was running on an emergency generator. Ohio Edison spokeswoman Luann Koch said power was to be restored to the county administration building Monday afternoon.
- In Liberty, Township Administrator Pat Ungaro said about six to eight trees fell on the roadway.
"We had about 3,000 people affected by power outages," Ungaro said. "You don't know how dependent you are to electricity until you don't have it anymore. The phones are out. You can't make coffee. You can have food spoilage because your refrigerator and freezer is out. We're all kind of spoiled."
Tim Monroe, head of the townships road department, said he began receiving phone calls at about 7:30 a.m. about trees being down.
"I called on everyone available to us," Monroe said.
As of Monday afternoon, there still was a large tree on state Route 304.
"The biggest danger we face is downed power lines," Monroe said. "Even when they are cut by the power company, there are people with personal generators that can send back charges. We rather err on the side of caution."
- In Cortland, downed telephone poles near Tournament Trail closed state Route 5 north of the city about 7 p.m. Sunday. It reopened Monday about noon, according to the Fire Department. Monday's regular city council meeting was canceled, as electricity to the administration building was out, officials said.
- Champion Fire Chief John Hickey said following the heavy winds, 50 to 60 percent of the township was without power into Monday. Because of the power outage, the township's school system was closed.
The Board of Education meeting originally scheduled for Monday will be moved to 7 p.m. Sept. 22 at the high school media center.
Hickey said there were some trees down but mostly main power lines and wires.
The American Red Cross set up at the Champion Presbyterian Church for residents without power, he said.
- In neighboring Southington, while the power stayed on for most residents, there were many trees down.
Fire Chief Tom Strock said one large tree fell and crashed through a living room window of a home on State Route 534.
Strock said the department received about nine calls mostly about trees across the road and some wires down. The fire and road departments worked together cutting and removing the trees from the roadways.
The school system was in session on Monday.
- In Mahoning County, Emergency Management Agency Director Clark Jones said U.S. 62 in Green Township was closed because of down trees and power lines and Sebring and Goshen also had problems with wind damage, as did Austintown, Boardman and Canfield.
There were no reports of any major structural damage in the county, Jones said.
- Vienna, Bazetta and Howland fire departments said they only experienced minor damage due to downed branches and electric outages were sporadic through each. Mathews Superintendent Lee Seiple said Mathews Neal Middle School was the only closed Monday after a tree fell on a wire nearby. There were only a few pockets of families without power, he said.
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virutalia
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09-16-08 10:22 AM
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Hopefully the storm washed society's debris from area 51. Great way to clean out the neighborhood.
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