SUGAR CREEK TWP.: Gordon Maupin hunkered down for safety.
It was dark. The wind howled like a banshee. Rain blew horizontally, carrying tree debris. The fury continued for 15 frightening minutes.
Almost as suddenly, the storm was gone.
Cleanup, however, is just beginning.
It took chain saws to free Maupin, other staffers and a visitor after the violent July 10 storm struck the Wilderness Center.
Even that experience didn’t prepare Maupin for the devastation he found in the following days at the 650-acre center, west of Wilmot on the Stark-Wayne county line. Or the trauma many felt at the overwhelming loss of so many old-growth trees.
“It is so heartbreaking,” Maupin said.
Welcome to Armageddon, Northeast Ohio-style.
Big chunks of mature forest at the Wilderness Center were flattened in a wind-whipped frenzy of leaves, branches and wood. Trees were blown over, with giant root balls pulling out of the ground. Other trees lost their tops, snapped off. Some crumbled and disintegrated in the winds. Some still are leaning or snagged in nearby trees.
Trees fell in giant tangles and jumbles — up to 15 feet high — making it impossible to determine how many trees actually make up the massive, woody mess.
Many of the trees were forest giants: 300 years old, 4 feet in diameter and more than 100 feet tall.
Open, bright and airy patches up to several acres in size now can be found in what had been the well-shaded deep woods with an imposing leaf canopy that previously kept out sunlight.
“It was a totally closed canopy before this,” Maupin said.
An exact number of trees damaged on the Wilderness Center property is impossible to determine. It exceeds 1,000.
The National Weather Service reported there was no tornado, just straight-line winds of 70 to 80 miles per hour or more, said Maupin, the center’s executive director for 32 years. The center might also have been hit by down bursts of wind at an angle that added to the forest devastation.
“We’ve never had a storm like this in my time here,” he said.
Wednesday’s storm did not appear to do any more damage to the center, but it would be tough to tell. The forest remains a dangerous jumble of broken and smashed tree trunks and branches. Debris is everywhere and probably will be measured in hundreds of tons.
Leaves that came down that day have turned a dark brown, allowing visitors to assess the devastation that is surrounded by intact Mother Nature more easily.
A slightly embarrassed Maupin says he got lost on one trail because of the tangled trees that made passage impossible. Trail features had disappeared and he became disoriented in the debris zone.
An ash trunk, 3 feet in diameter, sits at the edge of a trail. Ask how old it might be, Maupin quickly replied, “140 years.” He had counted the rings.
Black oaks, 200 years old and 3 feet diameter, had crashed to the ground. Nearby, a northern red oak that was 4 feet in diameter and more than 300 years old also fell. It was hollowed out and the trunk had split in its crash to the forest floor.
Trails will remain closed because of the giant trees that have toppled. Storm-damaged trees are leaning dangerously on other trees and have to come down.
The center is filled with dangerous “widow makers,” a term used to describe tree branches and parts of trees that are hanging from adjoining trees and could come crashing down.
A lone wooden bench on the Wilderness Walk trail is flanked by downed trees on each side. The bench itself is intact.
Severe damage
Three separate areas at the Wilderness Center suffered severe forest damage: the Wilderness Walk trail near the center’s Interpretive Building, Sigrist Woods to the east with some of the center’s biggest and oldest trees and the northwest corner near the Pioneer Path trail, Maupin said.
It’s almost impossible to get into Sigrist Woods with its old-growth trees.
“It was really hit hard,” Maupin said. “A lot of old trees survived. A lot of other old trees were just flattened. We can see light in the middle of the woods in a clearing of 2 to 3 acres, which tells us how many trees we lost. It’s significant.”
After the storm, volunteers came forward, offering to clear the trails with chain saws.
Maupin and his board rejected that solution as too dangerous. A damaged tree could come down and injure or kill inexperienced people, Maupin said.
That led the Wilderness Center and its resident forester, Adam Beichler, to contract with Millwood Lumber Inc. of Gnadenhutten. Crews will clear the downed trees along the trails and salvage what lumber they can. That work is expected to begin in about a week and will require at least three weeks of steady effort.
What’s being done, Maupin stressed, is a salvage operation, not a timber harvest. The center expects to make only enough money from the salvage operation to cover its costs from the storm.
Downed trees away from the trail largely will remain in place and will be allowed to decay naturally.
New forest emerging
Red-headed woodpeckers will thrive in the new forest, Maupin said, and salamanders will be found in the pools created where trees were uprooted.
Officials are conflicted about the devastation, Maupin said.
“In an ecological sense, this is considered a ‘stochastic event’ — that is an event that happens randomly to any one location but may be expected when you consider an entire landscape,” he said.
“On an emotional level, it tears your heart out,” Maupin said. “To see healthy, 300-year-old trees wiped out like this, it’s really hard.”
His voice trailed off.
Many members and visitors to the center have expressed similar sentiments, he said. Some have offered contributions to help repair trails and bridges.
On the other hand, the Wilderness Center forest will recover — far quicker than most people realize, Maupin said. It was healthy, with a good stocking of smaller trees and seedlings that will burst upward toward the light now that they aren’t shaded by the old-growth canopy.
“In a year or two, it will take a trained eye to realize that the center was hit by such a big storm,” he said.
Bob Downing can be reached at 330-996-3745 or bdowning@thebeaconjournal.com.