HUDSON, Ohio — Cleanup was underway in Hudson Thursday after severe storms left a trail of damage in their wake Wednesday evening.
“In 15 minutes, all the damage was done fast and furious. And we have a hole in our roof and we have about a dozen trees down,” said Sarah Forrer. “It was a mess. It was honestly one of those things, so surreal. I know it could’ve been much worse. We could have been hurt.”
A tree service company was cutting down broken branches, removing downed trees and chipping the wood at Forrer’s Hudson house Thursday afternoon. She said she and her children stayed at her sister’s house Wednesday night.
“It was wild to be in our little town and you couldn’t even get off the street. My husband drove up on sidewalks to make it because the streets were flooded in downtown Hudson,” she explained.
Down the street from the Forrer home, a large tree toppled onto a neighbor’s house, crushing part of the roof.
It was a similar sight at Mike and Sandy Gordon’s home on the north side of the city. Sandy pulled into the couple’s garage shortly before a storm rolled into the neighborhood.
“I got into the garage. The dog was there, I grabbed her and was watching the wind go crazy everywhere. I said, ‘Darla, we’re going to the basement.’ And before we got down there, it sounded like a bomb went off,” she recalled.
A few minutes later, when the wind and rain died down, Sandy said she could only see leaves and branches outside the front windows.
“Through all the windows on the front, all you see is tree. So the bomb was the tree hitting the house,” she said.
The Gordons were grateful to find the roof and house under the tree only incurred minimal damage. They, and other Hudson residents, said they were grateful to hear no injuries were reported during or after the storm.
“In the end, that’s about as good as it can get, I guess,” Sandy Gordon said.
Hudson Public Power worked through the night Wednesday into Thursday to restore power. Roughly 75% of its customers experienced outages from the storm. With mutual aid, the utility service was able to remove fallen trees and branches from power lines and fix downed poles. By the morning, 20% of customers were without power.
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