LOVELAND, OHIO – The most often words spoken around Loveland on Monday were, “Well at least…” For many:
“We don’t live in Galveston.”
“No one got hurt.”
“It was daytime.”
“We didn’t get rain like Chicago.”
“The tree didn’t hit the house.”
Chris Kubicki said, “Well at least no one was hurt.” On Sunday afternoon, she saw a large piece of metal roofing come off her Loveland Greenhouse building on Lebanon Road. She said it was “just floating” through the air, and then was caught perilously high in a nearby tree. She and her fellow workers at the time were trying to put their stock of fall plants inside to protect them from the high 50-60 mph wind. It was then that she ordered her employees to run away from the building that was loosing its roof, and the other buildings that are made of glass. They took shelter in a nearby car in the parking lot. The next thing Chris saw was a utility pole with a transformer crash to the ground. She then started to think the auto wasn’t the safest place to be, but with the building coming apart, and electric lines scattered about, couldn’t think of another place to go.
Later, Chris realized that a fifty-year old tree had come down along with the utility pole, both within ten feet of the area where she serves customers. She said she felt very lucky that the wind was blowing the way it did, but couldn’t quite figure it all out. She said it seemed that the wind was just swirling all around her. Miraculously, only a few panes of glass in the greenhouse were damaged. On Monday, everyone was busy picking up the pieces and throwing many plants into their much pile because they would be unable to water them and keep them healthy.
Chris Springborn and Casey Smeller had been practicing the new sport of “Rip-Sticking” on Wall Street for months and are quite proficient maneuvering the skate board that is two small boards with one roller-blade wheel on each, attached so each separate piece swivels. The two boards, attached in the middle are controlled independently by each foot, allowing surfing on pavement. A skilled rip-sticker can even go up hill easily.
On Sunday during the height of the windstorm, Springborn and Smeller, taking advantage of the wind and the closed street, took a picnic canopy top, and did some wind-surfing up Wall Street. Springborn’s son Cas, and neighbor Bill later showed their skill at a new sport that might have been hatched on Wall Street in Loveland, Ohio. Springborn later cooked steak, chicken, and vegetable shish-ka-bobs on his gas grill. He and his wife enjoyed the candle-lit (Well, Colman lantern-lit) dinner on their back porch, under an almost full moon that kept Loveland relatively well lit throughout the night. Their son Cas, later invited other neighborhood boys to camp on the porch for the night.
Dani and Charlie Lawler, as hard as they tried, had no luck getting their kite air born during the middle of the storm.
All Loveland neighborhoods were filled on Monday with couples and families on walking tours, grilling their midday meals on gas grills, sitting just inside their garages reading or eating by the sunlight. At almost every house, homeowners were doing the unwelcome yard clean up, many had only debris to rake to the street, the one, or two-foot end sections of tree limbs that were damaged by last summer’s cicada brood. Where the cicadas cut slits to lay eggs, the tree limbs were ready to shed the weakened branches. Many trees, already under severe stress from many too wet springs in recent years, and last summer’s severe drought were an easy target for the high winds. Most, uprooted trees had virtually no visible root system at all. Many strong trees lost large branches, landing on cars, houses, play-sets, and out buildings. Some utility poles cracked in half without the help of leaning trees.
Almost every neighborhood had at least one street closed because of downed trees and power lines. St. Rt. 48 in Clermont County had two such sections closed, with large downed trees hanging in power lines and crossing the roadway. Fallis Road was closed early in the storm on Sunday when a tree fell across the road, with some branches breaking the top of a utility pole. The road, leading to Loveland High School, was still closed to traffic, late on Tuesday morning.
Older children home from school seemed generally outside with their parents, as dads, or neighbors with chain saws helped one another clean the downed trees and large limbs. Some teens could actually be seen helping with yard work. One such teen, Chaz Schebor, had spent the day working with his dad, who owns a landscape business. Schebor’s bare arms and much of his clothing was still covered late in the evening on Monday with a sticky, tar like tree sap. He said it might have to use turpentine to clean his hands and arms.
The large, full canopied sycamore tree that stood just a few feet outside the customer entrance to the former Rolke Brothers Supply in downtown Loveland was toppled during the storm, landing where it would have cut the store in half had the store not recently been demolished.
A relatively small locust tree was down on the grounds of the Loveland Intermediate building, but the roof of the building needed many shingles replaced on Monday.
On Monday morning, Terri Shieldmeyer, was on the roof of an outbuilding at his parent’s home next to Tufts Shieldmeyer Funeral Home, using a chain saw to cut a locust tree that had fallen. Sheildmeyer said they had just put a new roof on the building.
When the sun began to settle on Monday, and electric service was returning to sections of town, the inside work began in many households, as there were refrigerators, and freezers to clean, guessing which food items had weathered the storm, and which had to be tossed. It was time to pack the dishwasher, run a load of clothes, and check to see whether cable service was on yet. At 8 PM a sense of normalcy was drifting over town, when the carillon bells at City Hall again sang out the hour, and the full moon’s brightness was helpful to those many parts of the community still without electric service.
No doubt, many “weathered” the storm very well, indeed, some having great fun while it was taking place, others comfortable under a front porch pondering the awesome power of a storm they had just seen on TV in Texas. However for many, it will be a very real hardship. Lost work and paydays, spoiled, much needed food to feed themselves and their children, no, or inadequate homeowner insurance, worry and alone throughout the night in darkness, or the thought of even another bill to pay will overwhelm some. There will be a great burden put on budgets of safety service and public work crews during the storm, and in the many weeks ahead of cleanup and debris removal.
Most, residents were in good moods on Monday, but those feeling the greatest impact on their home and budget were not those out on the corner ready to talk about their problems, complaints, and heartaches, but they are real and not easily fixed, just because the sun came out for the rest of us. On Tuesday, many sections of Loveland were still without electric service, and people are now preparing for at least a few more days without a refrigerator or a hot shower. Ice seemed a rare commodity, if not completely impossible to find on Tuesday. Gasoline was plentiful, and lines short, but, expect to pay around $4 a gallon.
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by David Miller,
