Saturday, June 26, 1999
Tornado stole a Cincinnati treasure: trees
BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Trees leveled by April 9 tornado.
(Craig Ruttle photo)
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They say a tornado comes and goes in a few seconds. Greater Cincinnatians who lived through the April twister know better.
Tornadoes unfold slowly. Months after their touchdown, they continue to affect the people who lived within their path.
Hot, sultry summer days reveal a particular sort of aftermath. Even people who retained their house find it no longer feels like home. The sun beats down on it in a different way now. The gardens have changed. The shade beds wither. A piece of land once filled with private corners is now laid open to the world. Gone is the precious sense of protection the owners once took for granted.
The difference is not missing rooms or roofs or windows. The difference is trees.
They toppled like dominoes
The storm that rushed through Cincinnati was a voracious lumberjack. It snapped off pines, twisted and splintered maples, uprooted oaks that had stood for decades.
Nowhere was the force of the tornado more evident than in wooded acres, like the Johnson Nature Preserve in Montgomery. Thousands of trees toppled like dominoes, on a scope to take a passerby's breath away.
Still, the loss that hurts tornado victims most is the destruction of one singular Bradford pear, or the painful absence of a gnarled old apple tree that only its owners could love.
These trees were not possessions. They were members of the family. Some were planted in honor of a new baby. Some were Father's Day look-out-the-window surprises. Others were family Christmas trees.
When they toppled, a great deal went down with them. Bird feeders. Playhouses. The robin's annual nesting spot. The best branch in the neighborhood for a swing.
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TO HELP
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• To contribute, make checks payable to Montgomery Woman's Club Tornado Tree Fund, P.O. Box 42114, Cincinnati, OH 45242-0114.
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They were pieces of people's lives, and some tornado victims say they mourn their trees more than the loss of home or possessions.
“We bought this lot specifically because of the trees,” says Montgomery resident Sue Guntzelman, who lost 15 trees. “Now it is bare, depressing. It feels like a piece of us was taken away.”
The night before the tornado hit, Mrs. Guntzelman and her daughter Jennifer sat on their back deck, marveling at the lush springtime view. In the darkness of the next morning — trying to figure out what had hit them — they surveyed their lot with flashlights.
What they saw had twister written all over it. Trees 50- to 80-feet tall uprooted, leaving 10-foot hollows at their feet. The women looked up and found “a hole in the skyline, where the trees had been,” Mrs. Guntzelman remembers.
Recovery in replanting
From the first, Greater Cincinnatians have recognized the physical and emotional value of the lost trees. A number of projects have sought to replant trees at particular sites. Grateful families have welcomed the help since, for many, insurance did not cover lost trees.
Still, many families are waiting, and saving, to replace them.
This week, the Montgomery Woman's Club stepped forward with aproject to raise funds to replace a large portion of the remaining trees.
Each contribution of $50 will buy one voucher, which homeowners can redeem for the tree of their choice.
Those families who are ready can replace trees this fall. Those who are building new homes can replace them next spring.
Please consider joining this community effort. We can give as individuals, perhaps in appreciation that our own trees still stand. We can give as office pools, church groups, garden clubs. Neighborhood associations across the city can send trees to neighborhoods hit hard.
It demonstrates a rule nature taught all of us this spring. From the roots of destruction, life starts up again.
Write Krista Ramsey at 312 Elm Street, Cincinnati 45202.
SPECIAL TORNADO COVERAGE
