Nancy Curry and her husband Larry Mackey returned to their Liberty Twp. home on Yankee Road after a less than 30-minute shopping expedition to find that the high winds had uprooted a more than 50-year-old tree in their front yard and sent it toppling into the home.
“We came down the road and I’m like ‘Holy cow!’ and the dogs … were scared to death,” said Curry. Damage to the home was “relatively minor” and included a couple of gutters, a window and a decorative front porch post.
“That’s the extent of it,” she said, looking up at the battered right side of the two-story home. “We’re very fortunate that no one was hurt. Very lucky, very blessed. That’s all we really care about. The house can be fixed.”
The highest wind speed reported in Butler County was 58 mph three miles to the southeast of New Miami at 5:55 p.m. Saturday, according to the National Weather Service in Wilmington. A wind gust of the same speed was measured at the Butler County Regional Airport at 4:47 p.m. that day.
Insurance representatives were assessing damage reports Monday.
Mary Bonelli of the Ohio Insurance Institute in Columbus, said the Institute plans to survey members to get a damage estimate for the storm. The Institute conducts surveys when the damage estimate is believed to exceed $25 million. The estimate should be available by early May.
Storms Saturday knocked down trees and toppled utility poles around the region, with Duke Energy reporting that 49,500 of customers in its 7-county region were without power at the height of the weekend’s stormy conditions, according to Duke spokeswoman Sally Thelen.
The outages started around 2 p.m. Saturday and the peak of them happened Saturday night. Hardest hit was Ohio’s Clermont County and Kentucky’s Kenton County, Thelen said, with Duke’s district office out of Fairfield in Butler County the lightest hit throughout Duke’s coverage area.
“We had to replace six utility poles that were affected in the storm. When the wind happens and there are trees, it’s not a good combination,” Thelen said.
That was the case all over Butler County, including Hamilton, which saw its public works department respond to trees down Main St., Morey Ave., Dayton St., Cleveland Ave., Parrish Ave. at Hancock Ave., Picadilly Drive, Emerson Ave. at Cereal Ave., University Blvd., and Glencross Ave. at Western Ave., according to Richard Engle, director of public works/city engineer.
That led to 1,200 customers without power at the height of the storm with no more than 3,200 customers affected overall in the course of the day, according to Bill Hudson, Hamilton’s manager of transmission and distribution.
The average power outage lasted about 40 minutes with the longest one running approximately seven hours for 100 customers between 6:55 p.m. and 1:55 a.m., Hudson said.
Public works crews in Middletown responded Saturday to several trees down in the road at various locations and also to signs blown over, according to Scott Tadych, Middletown’s director of public works and utilities.
In addition, the roof of a 40-by-60 metal pole barn at Lefferson Park was blown off and there was some minor damage to the equipment stored in the pole barn, Tadych said.
West Chester Fire Department made seven calls between 2:11 p.m. and 6:52 p.m. Saturday, most of them involving downed wires and two of those involving trees down, one on a building in the 5100 block of Aster Park and another in the 7900 block of Lesourdsville West Chester Road, according to Barb Wilson, spokeswoman for the township.
Liberty Twp. crews worked to remove several fallen trees from the roadway over the weekend on Maud Hughes Road, according to Caroline McKinney, spokeswoman for the the township. Crews also spent time Monday repairing and replacing signs that were blown down due to the extreme winds, she said.
A three-vehicle non-injury crash on northbound Interstate 75 near Union Centre Boulevard downed fiber optics cables across the southbound lanes, blocking traffic in that direction until approximately 3:40 p.m, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol.
Two people were injured at a grade school track meet hosted by Little Miami Local Schools in Warren County. A trained spotter reported to the National Weather Service that around 3:30 p.m. a 55 mph wind gust lifted a pole vault mat, injuring several including two people who had to be taken to a local hospital.
WHIO-TV Meteorologist McCall Vrydaghs said the Alberta Clipper that blew through the region Saturday was accompanied by a low pressure zone that descended from Canada along with cooler air.
The colder temperatures prompted a freeze warning with the possibility of frost until Tuesday morning. The next two weeks should be cooler than average and homeowners are advised to cover plants or bring them inside, she said.
Staff Writer Steve Bennish contributed to this report.
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