A line of violent storms swept across the Greater Cincinnati area on Tuesday, July 21, leaving residents to clean up the damage, not from flooding this time, but from tornado-force winds.
The storm in Clermont County sent debris flying, ripped pieces from a house and hurled trees into people’s homes and yards.
The National Weather Service office in Wilmington confirmed a tornado in Pierce Township. Officials were assessing storm damage Tuesday, including a house on Mott Road that had part of its roof torn off.
Tornado warnings were declared around 3 p.m., with reports of debris in the air, according to the National Weather Service. Residents were told to take shelter.
Clermont family could hear trees crashing from basement
Rick Mahan and his wife weren’t prepared for what they saw when they emerged from the basement of their home on Fagins Run Road in New Richmond.
“We were very shocked at how many trees were down,” Mahan said. They could hear the trees falling all around them, crashing down with a booming sound.
He was out in the sunshine hours after the storm had passed, cleaning up the debris it left behind. Uprooted trees and branches littered the 59-year-old’s backyard. The roof of his poolhouse was torn off.
Mahan doesn’t know if it was a tornado, but it certainly seemed like one.
“I’ve never seen trees bend that much before,” he said. Mahan didn’t seem too worried about the time it’ll take to clean up the debris, but he lamented the cancellation of his family’s annual Wiffle ball tournament.
“Right field is covered in trees right now,” Mahan said.
Fallen trees destroy garage, damage homes and power lines
Just a short distance away on Wilson Dunham Hill Road on the border of Pierce and Ohio townships, trees fell on wind-battered houses, pulled down power lines and left some yards completely covered in branches and debris.
Roman Carmosino, 22, was at work listening to the radio when he first heard the storm alert. He arrived back home to find that blown-over trees damaged the roof and destroyed the garage.
“I was not ready to see all these trees just gone,” Carmosino said, adding that a storm like this where he lives is a freak event. “I didn’t think it was gonna come through New Richmond.”
Ryan Schmidt also came home from work to find a dented roof and a leaking garage.
“I literally came around the corner and I said, ‘Oh snap,’” Schmidt said.
A large tree had slammed into the roof, causing what Schmidt described as light structural damage. The tree also grazed the top of Schmidt’s car when it fell.
The damage was mostly contained to the roof and garage, which Schmidt said was “fortunate” considering the homes more severely impacted by the storm. His home had never been this badly damaged from the weather before.
After seeing the damage, Schmidt called a friend. Several more showed up to help clean up his driveway and remove a large tree that collapsed on his roof.
“We’ve had neighbors stop by, we’ve had long-time friends stop by, just out of nowhere,” Schmidt said. “I told one person, and it became this network.”
‘We weren’t expecting this’
Rick Cullison was on the job repairing an air conditioner unit outside when the storm hit.
“It just popped up out of nowhere,” said Cullison. “It was kind of getting cloudy and stuff, and all of a sudden, it just hit.”
Lara Cullison, his wife, was getting ready to leave work when she received a call from a coworker, telling her a tree landed on her truck. She arrived home and saw that she wasn’t the only one affected.
“We weren’t expecting this,” she said. “But then, we weren’t expecting everybody’s trees to be down, either.”
A large tree had swung onto their front porch, leaving one of its columns slanted. It crushed the back of their black Nissan truck. More tree debris slammed into the couple’s roof and fell over a power line.
The couple doesn’t know how much of the damage insurance will cover. Right now, all they can do is leave things untouched until the adjusters arrive.
They decided that it’s safe enough to stay home. At least, they haven’t been told to leave.
The weather service said a final assessment, including results of a damage survey in Pierce Township, will be completed soon, with information released to the public in the coming days.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Tornado damages homes, cuts down trees in parts of Clermont County
Reporting by Quinlan Bentley and Jane Park, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Quinlan Bentley and Jane Park, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
