BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine was in town Monday, joined by the Ohio Emergency Management Agency, to view storm damage in Mahoning County. He also signed papers for an emergency declaration.
“That will set in place some opportunities in the future, could be federal opportunities, could be state opportunities, but we’ll get that done today,” DeWine said.
Emergency declarationDownload
Monday started a massive cleanup and damage assessment following severe storms that swept across the Valley on Sunday and left a trail of destruction and power outages. The lines of communication were open immediately between state and local officials after the storms.
DeWine saw plenty of the damage while driving through Boardman and Canfield Township on Monday afternoon. He talked with a couple of homeowners who were in the process of clearing trees that had fallen on their property.
The governor listened as they told him how they heard and felt the storm, ran for cover and then emerged afterwards to see the damage.
He understood what they had gone through and the emotions they were feeling after seeing what had happened.
“The damage here is very, very extensive. You can get briefed on it. You can hear it on the phone from your team and people who are there, but until you see it, you don’t really get a sense of the magnitude and the power of that wind,” DeWine said.
The governor also talked with the Ohio Department of Transportation and tree-cutting crews along Route 62 and thanked them for their work. The road had been closed since the storm and there’s still work to do, but it reopened around 3 p.m. Monday.
Some customers are still without electricity in several areas as crews work to restore service.
First Energy tracked 43,000 customers impacted by the storms, with 26,000 in Mahoning County alone.
“Our crews responded quickly. They were out here even before it happened because we had outages due to the heat. It’s been all hands on deck. We have about 200 contractors out right now for the lines and about 80 tree crews. They are trying to get the job done as quickly and as safely as possible,” said Brooke Conlan, a spokesperson with FirstEnergy. “Mahoning County got hit pretty, pretty, pretty hard. You know, as I said, you probably felt it if you lived in the area.”
Conlan said the damage is widespread and repairs will take time.
“Damage like this, it takes some time to restore power and assess that damage. We appreciate our customers hanging in there with us. We hope to have some updated restoration times coming for them,” she said. “We have a restoration process. Safety is a number one priority. We clear hazards, downed trees, poles, things like that, and then we move on to those high-voltage areas, and then we help with public service areas, and then we do the large number of customers that have been impacted in a specific area.”
Boardman resident Bill Olson lives off of Tippecanoe Road and was out to help clear the road right after the storm.
“Two trees fell on the power lines going to the house. So, the lights in the basement flickered and then went out. So, you know, what are you going to do? Right. I’m sure the power companies are going to be busy with main lines first before they get to us. But hopefully it will be more sooner than later,” Olson said.
Sunday’s storm only compounded the outage numbers from the Fourth of July’s heat.
“The heat did not help. We had strain on the grid. We had some equipment issues here and there, a lot of people using their air conditioning to increase that energy demand,” Conlan said.
While neighborhoods play the waiting game for their power, damage seems to be around every block.
“I mean, we’ve had some windstorms and stuff, but not nothing this bad. There’s trees, you know, broken stuff on the roadways and stuff. We have friends that live on the other side of Shields [Road], and they already said their stuff is all over the road down there, too,” Olson said.
Youngstown-area customers who are without power due to the storm can pick up free water at local Giant Eagle stores while supplies last.
Mahoning County Commissioners held a special meeting Monday to discuss the impact of the storms and to take the first steps in declaring an emergency.
Boardman was one of the hardest-hit areas in the storm. The township posted to its Facebook on Monday and said it has been in direct communication with local, state and federal leaders to advocate for disaster relief in the community.
The township said it received a call Sunday from DeWine asking what the state could do to help, ahead of his visit Monday.
Residents along Golfview Road in Boardman are still picking up the pieces following the storm. Homeowner John McIntyre says he has at least 20 trees down in his backyard.
The ground was littered with branches, while other tree trunks were snapped in half or uprooted completely. Residents continued their efforts Monday to clear their yards.
McIntyre said he’s shocked and doesn’t know where to start, saying he will need help removing the downed trees, some of which are 100 feet tall.
“It hit all of a sudden. The winds and the rain picked up, and then it got jet black, and things started swirling everywhere,” he said. “It wasn’t a straight line blow-through there. Stuff got thrown all over the yard — big trees down everywhere. I got a ton of them out back. I couldn’t believe it.”
McIntyre says he believes his property damage will take months to clean up.
Mill Creek MetroParks was among many locations that sustained damage. Different areas of the park, including the East Golf Course, Hike and Bike Trails, and Newport wetlands section, remain closed due to debris, downed trees, and flooding.
At the time the weather began, the golf course team worked to bring everybody to safety, and luckily no injuries were reported. The damage across the golf course is extensive among all 36 holes.
“It’s really just prioritizing where our greatest needs are at this point. Obviously, try to get the roadways open so our park patrons who utilize the park can get in and do that, followed by trails,” said Justin Rogers, director of planning and operations at Mill Creek MetroParks.
Rogers said it is unclear how long the park will remain closed and that they are working safely to get everything cleared up and ready for the public again.
Jeremiah Schindewolf with BSS Tree LLC says they have been working non-stop since Friday. The priority is safety and to get people in and out of their homes.
One of BSS’s crews was on Shields working on a tree that fell onto a house and smashed a car.
“We are just trying to get people safe and getting stuff off of roads and out of their driveways right now. Get everything taken care of and then we’ll come back and do the clean up once everything is settled and no more trees have fallen,” said Jeremiah Schindewolf, with BSS Tree LLC.
Chelsea Simeon contributed to this report.