1999 Cincinnati Tornado Tree Damage Recovery

In 1999, at 330 in the morning an F5 tornado tore through suburban Cincinnati, killing four people. It originally touched down in a more or less vacant light industrial park, and then crossed an expressway. Two drivers were killed. The tornado then skipped over about three streets of houses and then touched back down in a small nature preserve. This preserve is all of about twenty acres large, maybe thirty at the most. It is in the shape of a long rectangle that comes down a slope. Before the storm this site had mature tulip poplars, hickories, oaks, beeches, maples, hackberries, the usual SW Ohio mix. The tornado came down the hill, following the path of this preserve, sparing thousands of homes on both sides of the preserve, some only a few dozens of yards away. At the bottom of the hill the tornado destroyed ten or twelve homes along a road that directly crossed the tornado's path. This is where an elderly couple were killed. The tornado then crossed a school yard, another freeway, ripped the roofs off of some homes, destroyed a number of restaurants and shops, damaged an apartment complex and then dissipated. All in all, however, anytime you have an F5 tornado plow through densely populated suburbia at 330AM and only four people are killed, consider yourself lucky.

Anyway, soon after the storm I visited the nature preserve and you would not believe the mess. Fallen timber in mish-mashed "pick-up-sticks" tangles 15-25 feet high. A few standing trees, largely shorn of all branches, but mostly everything down. Huge discs of root masses, some 20' tall, perpendicular to the ground. Enormous divets. It certainly made you respect and awe the power of these storms. It truly must have sounded like the gates of hell as this thing tore its way down that hill.

But life comes back. Today we stopped by there and took some pictures. Almost seven years later the place is still a mess. Great masses of rotting wood, tangled thickets, mutilated trees, but recovery is happening. Some folks have planted a few trees, but it is really interesting to see how the old ones are returning. Interesting too are the trees that survived. All the oaks came down. Not one standing. No maples survived, nor hackberries, or ashes. A few hickories remained upright. A couple of sycamores. One beech. Surprisingly, the tree that remained standing in any numbers was the tulip poplar. Quite a few survived, and all have put on good new growth.

What follows are the pictures I took today. Conditions were terrible for pictures, but here they are.

Scott

Here is the one remaining beech

Scott

Tough picture, but here is the best picture of a tangle of tree trunks I could get.

and another...

I would have loved more overview pictures, but the minute you enter this preserve you are surrounded by dense thickets. The place is one big thicket. Of what, I'm not sure. Plenty of honeysuckle, and box-elders, but everything else too. Were it not for the paths, you could not traverse this area.

The forward tree, I think, is a hickory. The aft tree is a sycamore.

Tulip poplars.

And last but not least. A hickory.

Do you volunteer here?