BROOK PARK, OH — On a sunny August afternoon, Brook Park Mayor Edward Orcutt stood on the roof of the city’s recreation center with construction supplies on either end of the roof, reflecting on the last year.
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“65 percent of the roof tornado damage has been completed at this point,” said Oructt. “We still have another 35 percent to complete.”
It was around 4 pm on Aug. 6, 2024, when an EF-1 tornado ripped into the city and blew a portion of the roof off the rec center.
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“Tallying up right now all damage in the City of Brook Park, is about $4 million,” said Orcutt. “Most of it is here at our rec center.”
The center is now fully reopened, but a year after the tornado, ceiling tiles are still missing in places, and signs warn that parts of the building are without air conditioning as repairs continue.
The mayor said that after all damaged sections of the roof are fixed, repairs will start on other areas, including damaged siding on the building between the natatorium and the gymnasium.
“We continue to work every day on this,” said Orcutt.
While at the city’s service center, large semi-trailers were loaded with wood chips from piles that reached into the summer sky – the remains of trees and limbs ripped down by last year’s storm.
But Orcutt said if you look beyond the damage, you’ll see something else the tornado left behind in Brook Park.
“It certainly brought us together,” Orcutt said. “We are a much today than we were before that tornado.”
And more prepared, too.
Orcutt said after the storm, the city automated its tornado siren system so that a warning from the National Weather Service immediately triggers the sirens.
