Damaging winds blow through Northeast Ohio uprooting trees, damaging homes and leaving thousands without power

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) - At one point more than 230 thousand customers without power in Northeast Ohio are fierce winds, in some cases up to 70 miles per hour wreaked havoc.

Geauga County was one of the areas hardest hit because numerous homes were damaged when gigantic trees crashed down onto their roofs.

One couple living on Wye Road in Munson Township tells 19 News it wasn’t just one but three trees that slammed onto their home, damaging the kitchen and tearing down a power line. A woman who has owned the home for 50 years asked that we not use her name, “It came through into my kitchen and there’s a big hole there. I have no power, no water, no gas.”

She’s not alone. Tens of thousands in Geauga County alone were without power after storms and damaging winds blew through. A number of homes were forced to use generators as winds clocked up to 40 to 70 miles per hour in some parts of Northeast Ohio wreaked havoc.

Michael Dwyer is with Miller Tree Service out of Middlefield, “It’s my seventh callout today, my seventh callout, all with trees that are down on a property. Geauga and Chardon were really hit hard.”

Dwyer says a gigantic rotting gree crashed down on a rental home on Cloveridge in Russell Township, destroying part of the roof, the gutters and likely damaging the inside of the home. Fortunately, no one was home at the time, because Dwyer says large branches sticking out on a tree could crash down like daggers and kill someone if the branches pierce the roof of a home, “It’s very, very dangerous these big trees close to a house.”

So, the best advice, check the stability of large trees near your home from time to time. Because trees that are rotting at the base, or trees surrounded by heavily saturated grounds, could be the perfect storm to uproot your landscape, and that’s not only damaging but dangerous, “The moisture in the ground it becomes saturated and the roots don’t hold.”

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