Canandaigua Mayor Bob Palumbo says the damage seen at Kershaw Park and along Eastern Blvd. is some of the worst he can remember in the city.
A line of severe thunderstorms wreaked havoc across the Finger Lakes, but the cell that moved through Victor, Farmington, then Canandaigua caused by far the most-damage.
“Thankfully there was no flooding or harm to people,” he said during a conversation hours after the incident on Inside the FLX. “The biggest strike was Kershaw Beach, which saw a really intense wind event run up the lake. A lot of old willow trees were completely torn out of the ground, some heavy, heavy picnic tables were turned upside down, but there were close to 15 telephone poles snapped like twigs,” he continued. “That’s going to be a while before its back together.”
There were reports of people being trapped inside businesses along Eastern Blvd. as the storms rolled through. Mayor Palumbo confirmed those reports, noting that entire roads in the immediate area were completely blocked by utility poles and wires. “A number of folks couldn’t get their cars out, even this morning, when I went down there to see how things were coming, there’s a lot of work to be done.”
The Mayor says he heard from the state commissioner of Homeland Security, offering their assistance. He said the cleanup will involve a lot of entities and mean Kershaw Park is closed for the next couple days. He said city and county DOT staff will be out working on tree clean-up and removal.
The National Weather Service is sending out a team today to survey the damage and investigate whether it was caused by straight line winds or a tornado. There were unconfirmed reports of people seeing a funnel come off the lake. The storm was tornado-warned, which was the second time in less than a week that Ontario County was under a tornado warning by the National Weather Service.
“This is the most damage that I can remember from a wind-related incident,” Palumbo added, who has lived in the city for decades. “Seeing telephone poles snapped like twigs is just amazing.”
Whether the storm produced a tornado or not, the Mayor says it will go down in local history. Many of the trees that were destroyed are 50+ years old, and essential to how people see Kershaw Park. Not only that, but the timing of the event, which occurred nearly to the week, one year removed from historic flooding on July 10, 2023.
There were plenty of curious residents milling around the park Tuesday morning, which is why officials decided to shut down the park temporarily. “It’ll be a lot of work over the next couple days, but hopefully we can get the park reopened by weekend. We had to close the park because of the work that needs to be done in the short-term. It’s easier to do that without a lot of people there.”
Looking forward, Palumbo echoed sentiment shared by a lot of residents who captured photos of the park in the hours after the storm: Kershaw Park is going to look different moving forward. “It’s going to be bare, so it’s going to be a totally different landscape. We’re going to be working with the city arborist and public works to figure out a game plan moving forward. The trees are a big park of Kershaw, but it’s going to take a while to get it back where it was.”
Josh is the Vice President of FingerLakes1.com. Have a question? Send them to [email protected].