Storm highlights
Sixteen people suffered injuries at Freedom’s Call Military Tattoo at WPAFB.
Wind gusts reached 82 mph at Dayton International Airport, 63 mph in Huber Heights, 60 mph in Beavercreek and Centerville and 56 mph at Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport.
Power was knocked out for more than 300,000 DPL, Duke Energy and Ohio Edison customers in the region.
A sudden, violent summer storm Friday forced the cancellation of two major regional events, caused several injuries, knocked out traffic lights and left thousands without power as winds and rain blew away scorching temperatures.
The highly anticipated Freedom’s Call Military Tattoo — expected to draw more than 80,000 people to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base — was canceled for the first time due to a storm that also canceled or delayed an estimated 10 flights at Dayton International Airport.
Dayton’s 2012 Cityfolk Festival on Friday was canceled before it started.
“The plan is to open up at 1 p.m. tomorrow,” Lt. Mark Arendt, of Five Rivers MetroParks, said Friday night.
“They had a number of the tents damaged, and a number of vendors lost equipment and materials.
“This has probably been the worst (storm to ever impact Cityfolk),” he said.
At Tattoo, six people suffered minor injuries and required transport to local hospitals. Ten more were treated at the scene. The high winds caused a performance stage’s columns to tilt Friday.
Tattoo, an annual summer festival, has attracted tens of thousands of people to see music performances, aircraft flyovers and displays and ceremonies honoring veterans.
On Friday, a crane was brought in to stabilize the Tattoo stage and to assess when and how to take it apart safely, said Tattoo spokeswoman Michelle Martz.
Authorities did not have an exact number of attendees when the storm struck, but few people were present because of the time of day, they said. Those who were there were ordered to seek shelter or boarded public transit buses to leave, officials said.
“As we’ve said all along, our contingency plans are solid,” said Wright-Patterson Fire Chief Jacob King.
Wright-Patterson spokesman Daryl Mayer reported downed tree limbs, but no serious damage at the base.
Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Jeff Sandru and Airman 1st Class William Mealer, both Band of Flight technicians, were in the middle of shutting down power for the Tattoo stage when the storm struck. Air Force security personnel had cleared out a set-up crew preparing for a performance with rocker Eddie Money minutes before.
Mealer, 25, saw the winds tilt the metal columns holding the stage.
“I was 8 feet off the edge of the platform and a giant wind almost knocked us over,” he said. “As soon as I looked up and saw that, I just hopped the fence and ran.”
Sandru, 44, said the call to evacuate the stage 10 minutes earlier had averted danger in that spot. “Had we not been (evacuated), it would have been a lot worse,” he said.
After the cancellation, pyrotechnicians launched the festival’s fireworks because the material couldn’t safely be put back into containers, Martz said.
The storm quickly dropped stifling temperatures from the 90s into the comfortable 60s within minutes.
“That first burst of wind hit and it felt like we were driving into a freezer,” said Air Force Materiel Command spokesman Ron Fry, who was on the festival grounds. “I got a mouthful of dirt.”
Across a runway at the Air Force museum, between 600 to 700 tourists evacuated into an auditorium and a basement for about 20 minutes Friday.
“We got to see a part of the museum we haven’t seen in 18 years of coming here,” said Katie Distelhorst, 33, of Marysville, who went into the basement and stood against a wall with dozens of others, including eight children she escorted to the museum. “It’s kind of scary, kind of (an) exciting new adventure.”
A 61-year-old man suffered extensive critical injuries during the storm when he was forced to ditch his motorcycle and ended up underneath an SUV in Clark County’s Moorefield Twp., the Ohio Highway Patrol said.
Tens of thousands lost power on Friday. Approximately 165,000 Dayton Power and Light customers were without power across their service area, which covers about 6,000 square miles. The largest concentration of outages was in Montgomery County, which had more than 62,000 customers without power. The second-largest concentration was in Greene County with more than 30,000 in the dark.
“This is an extremely severe storm that came through our entire service area,” said spokesman Tom Tatham.
“We expect this will take multiple days,” he said.
Ohio Edison reported more than 24,360 outages in Clark, Champaign and Greene counties.
Duke Energy reported more than 156,152 outages including in Butler, Hamilton and Warren counties.
Several people in the area reported funnel clouds and swirls resembling a possible tornado. However, the National Weather Service radar operator at no time saw any rotation in the storms, according to Storm Center 7 Chief Meteorologist Jamie Simpson.
“For that reason, they say everything was straight-line wind damage,” he said.
Customers inside Dayton Mall were forced to evacuate after an temporary interior wall to a former DSW Shoe Warehouse fell outward into the mall.
No one was injured, and the mall is expected to be open today.
City of Dayton residents who have debris from the storm can drop it off at the Wagner Ford landfill, at 2670 Wagner Ford Road, today between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.
“We are trying to keep up with everything, but we are a little overwhelmed,” said Dayton Police Lt. Wendy Stiver, who was responding to a report that traffic lights went out at Salem Avenue and Parkhill Drive.
Today’s conditions are to be similar to those on Friday, according to Simpson. Specifically, an excessive heat warning has been issued for Montgomery County from noon to 8 p.m.
“We’ll have to watch for the potential of another line of storms (Saturday) afternoon into the evening that could produce more damaging winds, but indications are now that it may slide by to our north,” he said.
Staff writer Talya Flowers contributed to this story.
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