GREENVILLE – About a year ago, on May 7th of last year, the City of Greenville had to deal with damage from what was categorized as an EF1 tornado, with winds topping out at 110 mph. As we all know, it had a tremendous effect on our beautiful City Park, as well as significant damage within the Greenville Union Cemetery. The best news was no one was injured, and for that we all are most grateful to God.
It’s something I’m certain none of us will ever forget. Many of us didn’t have to deal with anything like this before that day, although we had just experienced a very recent tornado on March 14, which did extensive damage throughout Darke County, including just outside of Greenville.
What touched me the most was the incredible response by so many, a tremendous outpouring of people willing to help, including several neighboring municipalities, namely Sidney, Bradford, Versailles, and New Madison. Our Safety Service Director Ryan Delk did an outstanding job of quarterbacking the massive cleanup effort, and the Greenville Street Department under the direction of Matt Myers are to be commended for having done whatever needed to be done, no matter the time of day. And we can’t say enough of the job done by our Police and Fire Departments.
We are blessed as a community to have so many residents and various organizations willing to work so hard in helping their neighbors and community in cleaning up individual properties, our City Park and our cemetery, as well as providing food for all of those doing so, namely Tribute and Zechar-Bailey Funeral Home, and Shannon Clark’s ‘Nacho Pig’ food truck. To everyone that helped, and I may have missed a few, we extend our sincere thanks.
Many families experienced damage, and it’s taking time to be made whole again. With God’s blessings, strength, and provision, it will happen. We will begin seeing trees being planted in our park in the fall, thanks to the generous donations to the ‘Adopt-a-Tree’ fund headed up by the folks at Zechar-Bailey. Those trees will continue to be planted in various sections of the park over the next few years, under the help and guidance of the urban forester who is guiding us, Wendi Van Buren, from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources.
All of this takes great patience. We have a community of great citizens, and we have had a great deal of help in the past year, all of which we should be most grateful and thankful.
