Although more than 60 trees were lost to the storm, by Wednesday morning, the back nine at the club was open for play and several members were on the course when heavy rains hit at mid-morning. That stopped play for the day. Additional rain today also prevented play.
Williams said a club tournament Sunday remains in jeopardy since he doesn’t expect front-nine cart paths to be usable by then, although he expects all 18 holes to be playable.
As for the club’s swimming pool, it had to be drained and cleaned after a tree fell in it.
Several club members and members of other clubs helped clean up the course, and Williams wanted to give special thanks to Dayton Power & Light, which brought in a generator to operate the kitchen and parts of the clubhouse until full power was restored.
Meanwhile, Williams and others on the staff worked to get the club ready for its heavy-use summer months.
J.R. Ross, the club’s director of food and beverage, was operating in a much different role Wednesday as he helped a landscape company remove branches and trees from the front nine.
Williams estimated the club lost about 66 trees, most of them on the front nine, which can be seen from the clubhouse parking lot.
“We lost 50-foot trees,” Williams said as he pointed out some of them, laying roots and all in the rain-soaked grass.
Ross was actually on the course when the storm hit about 7:30 p.m. on Monday, a day courses are traditionally closed to the public.
“I was out with three buddies and it started raining hard and the storm was coming right at us,” Ross said. “It was definitely a twister, and then it took a turn. We ran to our cars.”
A spokesperson for the National Weather Service said he had no reports of a tornado in the area, but that strong straight-line winds could cause severe damage, especially with the ground as saturated as it has been. At least one residential area to the east of the course off Taywood Road was also hit hard, suffering tree damage and loss of electricity.
“It’s like a fencepost,” the spokesperson said. “If the ground is wet, it’s easier to wiggle out. Strong winds can pull whole trees out of the ground.”
Williams considered the course lucky.
“No one was hurt, and all we lost on the clubhouse were a few shingles,” he said. “It’s only trees. This isn’t like Joplin, Mo.”
In Joplin this week, a confirmed 125 people lost there lives and whole sections of the town were leveled by a tornado, that was upgraded to an EF-5, or the highest rating possible on the Enhanced Fujita scale of tornado power and intensity.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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