Today is Sept. 1, 2023.

• Happy September! It’s going to be pleasant with plenty of sunshine today, with a high of 77 and low of 56. More importantly, dry and warm weather is expected over the Labor Day holiday weekend — which means the Stow Summer Sunset Blast on Saturday and Sunday should go off without a hitch. After what we went through this time last week, we’ll take just about anything.
  

• Beginning next week, The Spotlight will publish Thursday mornings instead of Fridays. The change will not affect coverage or anything else in the newsletter, and the popular Community Calendar will still include upcoming events covering about a two-week period. So look for The Spotlight in your inbox next Thursday morning, Sept. 7!
  

• Many thanks to The Portager/Spotlight Publisher Ben Wolford, who pinch-hit in the ninth inning for me the night of Aug. 24-25 as my wife and I sat in the dark with just about everyone else. The storm knocked out the power at our house at about 12:25 a.m. with The Spotlight about three-quarters finished, so Ben jumped in and wrapped up the edition so everyone would have a hot-off-the-press newsletter waiting for them in the morning.
  

• If you’re a paid subscriber, you’ve probably noticed that your invoice and credit card statements have “The Portager” on them instead of “The Spotlight.” That’s because The Spotlight is owned by The Portager. So you’re not being charged for a different newsletter subscription — or for two newsletter subscriptions. You’re only paying for one subscription, and that’s The Spotlight. If you have any questions about billing, just reply to this email.
  

• If you just subscribed or missed something in an earlier newsletter, don’t fret: Subscribers have access to every edition of The Spotlight at www.stowmunroefalls.com. Check out back issues to catch up on everything that’s going on in our communities — you never know what you might have missed!

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Community

A storm for the ages: The night of Aug. 24-25 wrought havoc across Northeast Ohio

Stow Mayor John Pribonic called it “one of our worst storms” and a “natural disaster.”

In a year of wild weather, the night of Aug. 24 and early morning hours of Aug. 25 will certainly go down as a night nobody in Stow, Munroe Falls, Silver Lake and across Northeast Ohio will forget. The violent storm slammed into our area a little before 12:30 a.m. Aug. 25, leaving a wake of destruction that downed power lines, dropped trees and limbs onto houses and roads, damaged homes, turned smaller structures into splinters, cut power to hundreds of thousands of people across Northeast Ohio (leaving some in the dark for days, including in our area), spawned at least 12 tornadoes (a figure that’s still rising as the count continues), and forced the cancellation of schools Aug. 25, including Stow-Munroe Falls.

The City of Stow acted quickly after the storm swept through:

• City crews worked round-the-clock for days to clear roadways and other areas of trees, limbs and other debris.

• The city worked with FirstEnergy to bring additional crews from out of state so that power could be restored as quickly as possible.

• Dry ice was made available to residents at City Hall to prevent food from going bad in freezers and refrigerators.

• A curbside tree debris pickup was offered to residents, with the city going street by street in that endeavor.

We’ve seen trucks and heavy equipment lumbering up and down our battered streets and heard chainsaws buzzing for the better part of a week, but now the roads have been cleared, the power is back on, and we can get back to our regularly scheduled lives. And the best part: There were no reported fatalities.

Here’s to hoping we never have to go through anything like it again.

More on the storm:

• The Summit County Fiscal Office has announced that real estate tax relief will be available to residents who sustained damage to their property in the storm. The fiscal office says it is “taking the necessary steps to provide property owners the ability to file an Application for Valuation Deduction for Destroyed or Damaged Property (Form DTE 26), pursuant to Ohio Revised Code §319.38.” Go to this page for more information and to download Form DTE 26, or call (330) 643-2704 to request a form in the mail. Mail the completed form to the Summit County Fiscal Office at 175 S. Main St., Rm. 304, Akron OH 44308.

• Northport Park, SOAR and SKiP playgrounds in Stow all experienced damage from downed trees. The city has cleaned up these facilities and they have been reopened.
  

• Silver Lake storm clean-up: Pro-Tree has been contracted by the village to clear much of the debris caused by the storm. Beginning Tuesday, Sept. 5, the tree company will be working in the village to remove fallen tree trunks and limbs. Legislation passed at a special council meeting Aug. 29 specifies 14 streets in the village that suffered the worst damage. Since the village is not legally permitted to do work on private land, Pro-Tree can pick up only what is on the curb or the village right-of-way; the company cannot go into any resident’s yard. This pick-up will be for storm debris only; residents are advised not to put out any leaves or limbs that may have been set aside awaiting the village’s normal leaf/limb pick-up, which will begin at the end of October. Additional information regarding this special clean-up program, including the names of the 14 streets specifically prioritized, is posted on the village’s website and Facebook page.

• The Village of Silver Lake contacted the Federal Emergency Management Agency about receiving possible emergency response resources. However, since Silver Lake has not been declared a disaster area, there is no federal funding available at this time. Go to this page for more information. Other local resources for residents are the American Red Cross and the United Way/211.

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