I-Team: New footage shows intensity of NE Ohio severe weather

CLEVELAND (WJW) — Video just released to the FOX 8 I-Team gives us a new look at the power of Northeast Ohio severe weather, including tornados.

Now, six weeks after the storm, we also found the cost of the damage still adding up.

We are now seeing what City of Cleveland security cameras captured. After the storms moved through, we filed a request for a view you haven’t seen before.

On the recording from one camera, you can watch the rain get more intense and become blinding. Other video shows sheets of rain and ferocious winds bending trees. More video shows vehicles plowing through water, suddenly very deep, on city streets.

The storms left heavy damage and they knocked out power at homes and even Hopkins Airport .

The new video led us to take a new look at the impact of the storm.

The damage and recovery in Cleveland and Brook Park .

We revealed earlier a tornado ripped the roof off of the Brook Park rec center.

“We would love to get people back in the building,” Chris Wetmore, the Brook Park Recreation Director said Friday.

He showed the I-Team crews making repairs. You can see patches on the roof. And, many weeks after the severe weather, you can see the massive amount of work still to be done. Brook Park now estimates more than $8 million in damage from a tornado sweeping through.

At the same time, city leaders are grateful knowing it could have been worse.

“The amount of damage sustained in the City ,yet, we had no injuries and no fatalities. Count our blessings, and we’re thrilled that happened that way,” Wetmore said.

Meantime, consider what else we noticed when we looked at that new video.

The most intense wind and rain lasted only a couple of minutes. In fact, officials in Brook Park point out the severe weather did several million dollars worth of damage, and it took only about two minutes.

In the new video, you also see emergency crews rushing to a call.

The City of Cleveland has also been totaling up the cost of the damage. The city recently asked anyone with storm damage to report it so that the city can get an accurate count for the cost.
Not clear, yet, what State or Federal aid may help cover any of the repairs.

But, the new video provides a new look at the power and fury of the severe weather.

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