Wheeling Park Prepares for ‘Weeks’ of Cleanup

photo by: Photo by Derek Redd
Crews spend Tuesday afternoon cutting away downed trees at Wheeling Park. A pair of derechos wrecked parts of Wheeling early Tuesday morning, uprooting some trees and snapping others in half. Wheeling Park bore the brunt of the storm's damage.
WHEELING — Wheeling Park Manager Nat Goudy had a bad feeling about what awaited him inside the park’s grounds after Tuesday’s storms almost right after he drove through the entrance. He could only go so far before downed trees forced him to back out.
He then parked down by the Doughboy statue and walked into the park from that direction. Then, he saw the full effects of what those severe storms brought.
“I was shellshocked,” Goudy said. “I just started calling people. I said I’d never seen anything like it.”
City officials said most of the damage from the storms was found in the area between Greenwood Cemetery and Wheeling’s Springdale neighborhood. Wheeling Park was directly in that line of fire and, Tuesday afternoon, the damage was everywhere. That damage was such that Goudy said those helping clean it up will be in for the long haul.
Trees were down throughout the park. Some were snapped in half. Others were uprooted and toppled over. And these weren’t just small decorative trees, either. Some of the park’s older and larger trees came down as well.
On top of the trees down at the park’s entrance, another large trunk landed across its exit. Both were removed by Tuesday afternoon.
“Some of these tree bulbs that were pulled out of the ground are taller than me,” he said, “and I’m 6-foot-2.”
Some visitors walked through Wheeling Park on Tuesday, but none of the buildings had power, including the pool, which was closed and won’t be able to open until power is restored at the park. American Electric Power said Tuesday afternoon it wasn’t presenting timelines for power restoration due to the extensive damage throughout Wheeling.
Goudy did find a sliver a silver lining in the mess.
“Thank our blessings, but outside of some minor branches, not a tree hit our shelters,” he said.
Crews were out through the park Tuesday afternoon with chainsaws, paring down the larger trees and sending the branches into the woodchipper. Debris crossing pathways was moved out of the way. Traffic exiting the park was directed past the playground and out the gates that way.
Workers started in one corner of the park and will work outward from there, Goudy said. When it was suggested that cleanup could take days, he said it could be even longer.
“I’m thinking weeks right now,” Goudy said. “We’re just trying to push things to the side right now. We already have our chipper out and we have a tree company coming in (Wednesday). We’re going to move as fast as we can.”