Freak Storm and Rainfall Took Their Toll on Parks

Storm damage to Central Park's East Meadow

Riverside and Central Parks will wear scars from the summer of 2009 for years to come, as massive rainfall and a tremendous storm on Aug. 18 destroyed trees and forced parts of the parks to close temporarily.

Since June 1, 21.4 inches of rain have fallen in Central Park, as compared to 12.7 inches in a normal year. In Central Park, workers had to regularly pump water off the baseball fields and often had to close them altogether, wrote Russell Fredericks, the park’s horticulturist, in an email. Overall, though, the rain has kept the lawns lush, Fredericks wrote. In Riverside Park, workers had to constantly mow the lawns because they were growing much faster than usual, said John Herrold, the administrator of Riverside Park. Weeds have been sprouting too.

Riverside Park storm damage

More than the rain, however, the Aug. 18 storm wreaked havoc on the parks. It lasted less than 30 minutes, but did more destruction than any storm in decades. In Riverside, the storm destroyed 65 trees, crushed at least benches and knocked down 2 light poles and a traffic light. Hundreds more trees have broken limbs.  By the day after the storm, people had donated $2,000 to the cleanup effort, Herrold said.

In Central Park, the storm took out more than 250 trees. Although the damage was severe, it was extremely localized, said Neil Calvanese, vice president of operations. The storm tore a gash through the park between about 90th and 110th Streets — particularly the Great Hill and the Peter J. Sharp Children’s Glade — but left much of the rest of the area unharmed.

“You walk in the south end of the Park, below 90th Street on the East and 85th on the West, and there’s nothing – not a leaf blown off the trees,” he said in a statement.

About 50 staffers from the Central Park Conservancy have been working with contractors and USDA volunteers  to assess and deal with the damage. Among the victims was an 156-year-old Turkey Oak on West 100th Street. An 8-ton Pin Oak in the same area also fell. Because of a beetle infestation, the park has to turn all the felled trees into mulch — in most years it makes about 7,000 cubic yards of mulch, but will likely create at least 30,000 yards of woodchips once the cleanup is complete. The West 100th Street and East 110th Street playgrounds are closed until further notice. The Conservancy and the Riverside Park Fund have been asking people to contribute to storm cleanup efforts. (images from Central Park Conservancy and Riverside Park Fund.)