The minuteman response remains our singular capability.
by Aaron Rourke, leader of the FLMSP Minuteman Response effort
April 2016
From the Dayton Daily News, April 4, 2016: “Utility crews and private contractors worked overtime Monday to clean up the millions of dollars in damage left by the region’s first major wind storm of 2016, the most destructive since the 2012 derecho.”
The response to that derecho, and Hurricane Ike a year or two before it, were shining moments for FLMSP. Ike dropped so many trees in two hours’ time that we found ourselves in a new world of work. It was our first mass casualty incident. The infrastructure we needed to deal with it was in place, however, in the form of a uniform distribution of adopters, chainsaw crews, and equipment. We powered through that day, and invented our minuteman process on the fly. We were no longer novices when the derecho came along, and we handled it very methodically. We removed fifty downed trees within about one work day.
We had the trail to ourselves because Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR)’s first priority was, and still is, restoration of electrical service within the state parks in the district (there were six back then). Once this was accomplished, they re-tasked their employees to help us open our trail, and called us to ask where to send the first-arriving crews. Imagine their surprise when we were able to tell them that all downed trees had been removed, and that the trail was completely open. Our reputation was made. Our accomplishment was highlighted state-wide and ODNR began referring to us as their best ‘friends’ group. We even received a commendation from the legislature.
The minuteman response remains our singular capability. When considering the fundamental question of our role vis-à-vis ODNR, we should keep in mind something that ODNR has told us several times—that the minuteman response is our forte, the one thing that they could not even realistically aspire to replicate.
We won’t attempt to list all the volunteers and their efforts in the couple of days following the April 2 windstorm. But they are deeply appreciated by trail users. As Rick Forrester reports after his day clearing trees: “We had a lot of positive feedback by users of the trail on how quickly the emergency response teams got out and fixed the trail.”
Kathy Maurer, who walked the section from South Lebanon south to the spur trail to Lebanon, says the contrast between the FLMSP-supported trail and the Lebanon trail was amazing. “Our part of the path was clean and neat, while the cut-off was covered with sticks and debris. Thanks everyone for doing such a good job cleaning up!”
