Area recovering from wind storm

High winds knocked down trees and caused power outages around Clark County.

Utility crews and private contractors worked overtime Monday to clean up the millions of dollars in damage left by the region’s first major wind storm of 2016, the most destructive since the 2012 derecho.

Clark County did not get the maximum 60-mph-plus wind gusts that some other parts of the area received, but damage and power outages were reported throughout the county.

By historic standards the Alberta Clipper that blew through the area Saturday wasn’t record breaking. The derecho and summer storms of 2012 had peak wind gusts of 80-to-100 mph.

But the weekend burst did knock down trees and business signs. It blew over a truck on the highway and cut power to 40,000 residents at the peak of the outages.

Insurance representatives were assessing damage reports Monday.

Mary Bonelli of the Ohio Insurance Institute in Columbus, said the organization plans to survey members to get a damage estimate for the storm. The institute conducts surveys when a damage estimate is believed to be near $25 million.

Cow comes down

According to data from the National Weather Service, wind speeds generally varied between 60 mph at Dayton International Airport and Union City down to the 40-mph range in some parts of Clark and Clinton counties.

Just north of Yellow Springs at Young’s Jersey Dairy, a cow statue atop the restaurant’s sign was blown down. The restaurant said on its Facebook page that the cow survived the ordeal and repairs are underway. Near Young’s Jersey Dairy, a large tree fell across U.S. 68, blocking traffic in both directions.

Trees came down on two homes in New Carlisle, one on Brookfield Drive south of New Carlisle Elementary and one on North Scott Street, according to Fire Chief Steven Trusty.

“One of the families (on Brookfield) had to be displaced because of the structural damage,” Trusty said.

The fire department did some scouting around town to identify any other damage, he said.

The only other issue they dealt with was a small fire in a corn field off of Addison-New Carlisle Road sparked by downed power lines. The fire was put out by crews on Saturday, but DP&L couldn’t respond immediately to fix the lines, causing the road to be closed for awhile, Trusty said.

Power mostly restored

More than 2,800 Ohio Edison customers in Clark County were without power on Sunday and an unknown number of DP&L customers. By Monday afternoon, 11 DP&L customers in Clark County and three in Champaign County were still without power.

Ohio Edison spokesman Chris Eck said power has been restored for all Clark County customers impacted by the storm.

At the peak of the storm, DP&L officials said more than 40,000 customers in the region were without power.

DP&L spokeswoman Debbie Carity said the goal is to get all customers’ power restored on Monday.

“Crews are working. They’ve been working 16 hour shifts. We have additional crews in, additional linemen in from Kentucky and Tennessee and other parts of Ohio so we’re working as quickly and as safely as we can,” Carity said.

Lisa D’Allessandris, director of the Clark County EMA, said Clark County communities saw many trees down and scattered power outages.

D’Allessandris said the storm damage mostly occurred in western Clark County, including Enon, Mad River, New Carlisle.

D’Allessandris said some of the damage occurred in Springfield Twp. and Husted areas.

She said the storm damage this weekend was not serious enough to warrant EMA or state aid.

DP&L said it considers Saturday’s winds one of the top 15 events it has handled in the past dozen years.

Staff writers Michael Cooper, Tiffany Y. Latta, Matt Sanctis and Katie Wedell contributed to this report.

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