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Expert: Downburst caused damage
By ED RUNYAN
WARREN
Storms Hit Trumbull County
Video
Howland residents got an unexpected wake up call early today when high winds and storms wreaked havoc. One resident said it sounded like a tornado.
An official with the National Weather Service said the storm damage in northeast War-ren and adjacent areas of Howland Township on Friday morning was caused by a downburst with winds of 80 to 90 mph.
Linda Beil, director of the Trumbull County Emergency Management Agency, said Gary Garnet of the Cleveland office of the National Weather Service called the storm a “downburst” while touring the storm areas with her Friday afternoon.
Garnet came to Trumbull County after Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien asked for the National Weather Service to look into the matter further and explain why no tornado warning was issued.
O’Brien, among others, said he felt the damage from the storm suggested a tornado, and he thought a tornado warning should have been issued so that emergency sirens could have been sounded to alert Warren residents.
It felt and sounded like a tornado to Northbury Colony apartment resident Amanda Briggs.
“There’s no way this was anything but a tornado with all this damage,” said Briggs, who lives in a third- floor apartment at Northbury Colony.
O’Brien said the amount and type of damage — especially trees snapped off 30 feet in the air and twisted — suggest that the damage was caused by a tornado.
The siding and particle board in the top portion of Briggs’ apartment building and several others nearby were ripped off about 4:45 a.m. in the midst of a storm that included thunder, lightning and high winds.
“I could feel the whole building shaking,” Briggs said of the storm, which knocked down scores of trees within a couple of miles to the east and west of the apartment complex.
Trumbull County 911 also had reports of trees and power lines down on Youngstown-Kingsville Road in Vienna Township and Bedford Road, Collar Price Road and state Route 7 in Brookfield Township.
In another part of Northbury Colony, the roof on a carport lifted up and landed against a tree. A portion of the roof came down and landed on several cars, damaging them.
No injuries were reported from the storm, according to the Warren Police Department and Trumbull County 911.
The storm appears to have followed a path east along Reeves Road, blowing through Northbury Colony and continuing through the adjacent Hoffman Circle area of Howland until it reached North Road near the Peter Rossi funeral home.
Farther east, trees and power lines were down along North River Road, Anderson Drive and Castlerock in Howland starting just before 5 a.m.
Power was out to about 2,300 customers at 7 a.m., Ohio Edison said, most of it resulting from scores of large trees’ hitting power lines.
Robbin Patton, Ohio Edison spokesperson, said most of the outages were in the Northbury Colony, North Road and Reeves Road areas and around Genessee Avenue Northeast, as well as about 800 homes in the Cortland area. The last 300 customers were expected to have their power back by 8 p.m. Friday, Patton said.
Dan Price of Hollywood Street Northeast had just stopped his car at Hollywood Street and Genessee Avenue about 9 a.m. when he saw a tree that had been leaning against another tree fall on a power line, which broke the top off the power pole close to his car.
“It was pretty bright and sparking for a few seconds,” he said of the power lines. “Cars were backing up and getting out of the way.”
The home of Butch and Jody Barnett on Hoffman Circle, just to the east of Northbury Colony, got hit by three large trees — two in the backyard and a large branch from a tree in the front yard.
“I was in my hallway. I heard the cracking and the glass breaking,” Jody Barnett said. Downed trees littered yards all along Hoffman Circle.
A portion of North Road near the Peter Rossi funeral home was closed Friday morning, as workers removed downed trees along the west side of North Road that had brought down power lines.