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Workweek gets off to a blustery start
The wind knocked down a tree that landed on a car in Liberty Township.
YOUNGSTOWN — If the answer was blowing in the wind, it was pretty hard to read as gusts reached 43 mph in the Mahoning Valley to start the workweek.
The wind Monday downed part of an old oak tree, which landed on a car and sent one woman to the hospital, in Liberty Township.
The tree fell on Kathy Terela’s car as she was dropping off her two daughters at her parents’ house, 1450 Marlane Drive, said Harry Schesler, the woman’s father.
Terela was returning to the car to retrieve her second daughter when she heard a crack and saw the tree falling, Schesler said. The tree, which was about 60 to 70 feet tall, landed across the back seat of the Chevrolet Malibu, but Schesler said his wife had already retrieved his other granddaughter.
Branches from the falling tree glanced off Terela, who did not have visible wounds but went to the emergency room anyway, Schesler said.
“She was very lucky,” Schesler said. “If the kids were still in the car, they would have been really severely injured.”
The remaining portion of the tree, Schesler said, is likely to fall with more rapid gusts of wind and could tear down power lines. He said he alerted Ohio Edison.
Schesler said the car is likely totaled, but that his family is lucky to have avoided serious injury.
“Everybody is healthy, so you count your blessings,” he said.
The wind in the Valley was a steady 25 to 35 mph most of Monday, hitting 43 mph at 12:06 p.m., according to National Weather Service data.
“This time of the year with cold air from the north and warm air from the south colliding, you can get pretty strong winds,” said Kirk Lombardy, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Cleveland.
A wind advisory is supposed to be lifted by 5 a.m. today, he said.
The wind was supposed to be about 15 to 25 mph today, according to the weather service.
It will drop to 10 to 15 mph Wednesday and be gone through at least Monday, according to the service.
Wind gusts hit 50 mph throughout Northeast Ohio and Southwest Pennsylvania on Monday, Lombardy said.
skolnick@vindy.com rrouan@vindy.com