The Town of Madison’s ongoing efforts to remove dangerous trees from roadways proved useful during the severe storms that hit Northeast Ohio on August 6th.

This assessment was made by one of the municipality’s government representatives at the board of trustees meeting on August 13.

During this meeting, Town Administrator Tim Brown asked Service Department Manager Paul Cook about the number of trees along the street that had fallen during the storm.

Cook said only one tree fell in the area of ​​a municipal road.

Brown said he believes storm damage in Madison Township has decreased because the trustees and the service department have made a concerted effort to regularly remove dangerous trees in the street.

“It was good to be proactive,” Brown said.

The severe storm that swept across northeast Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey left nearly 600,000 FirstEnergy Corp. customers without power.

This line of storms brought winds of over 75 mph to parts of Ohio and western Pennsylvania, along with rainfall of over 2 inches to parts of eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to a FirstEnergy news release. Northeast Ohio was hardest hit, with more than 333,000 customers in Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake and Lorain counties without power.

In many communities, roads were blocked by trees, branches and power lines that had been downed by the storm.

About five Madison Township Service Department employees were called during the storm to continue clearing debris that landed on township streets, Cook said.

“We had some branches, but only one of the big trees fell over,” he said.

Brown said the township government has been aggressively removing dangerous trees for the past six years. He added that trustees have allocated about $40,000 annually to remove dangerous trees from street areas.

“I think the fact that only one tree fell in the last storm speaks to Paul’s work and what the board of trustees has done in appropriating money to remove these old trees to prevent problems,” Brown said.

The right of way of a road consists of a roadway for vehicles as well as elements such as grass verges, curbs and sidewalks that are under the control of a government agency.