Ten Days After the Derecho: Where Central Ohio’s Storm Debris Is Actually Allowed to Go

Ten days after the 11 August storm, the piles are still at the kerb. Some of them are going to be collected. Some of them are past the deadline and nobody has told the owner. And in at least one suburb the truck has already come through once and is not coming back.

This is not a “call us” article. It is the part nobody published: where central Ohio storm debris is actually allowed to go, jurisdiction by jurisdiction, with the size limits and the dates. Nine municipalities, nine different sets of rules, and they contradict each other on almost every point — branch diameter, bundle length, whether logs are taken at all, whether you have to phone first.

We also went and read the National Weather Service survey, because a great deal of what has been said about this storm is wrong in ways that matter.

Everything below is sourced. Where a rule comes from a news report rather than the city’s own page, we say so and tell you to ring before you drag anything to the kerb.

What the National Weather Service actually confirmed

The tornado was real, and it was small.

Four minutes. Under two miles. A hundred yards at its widest. The NWS Wilmington survey found the first damage on South 8th Street, where several trees were broken and uprooted, then tracked the corridor east along Parsons Avenue, between East Hinman and Woodrow Avenues, through South Champion Avenue to Lockbourne Road, with particularly severe damage on Reeb Avenue, before it dissipated west of Fairwood Avenue.

So why is half the county covered in broken trees?

Because the tornado was the smallest part of the day.

The parent system was a derecho, and the NWS confirmed six tornadoes across Ohio on 11 August — including an EF2 south of Catawba in Clark County at 115 mph, and a second central-Ohio EF1 in Madison County whose damage was described as primarily fallen trees.

And underneath all of that was a straight-line wind field that covered the whole region. In Upper Arlington, the NWS found 90 to 100 mph straight-line winds with no tornadic circulation at all — worst near Upper Arlington High School and along Zollinger Road, and east of the school along Mount Holyoke Road, Wellesley Drive, Halstead Road, Pickwick Drive and North Star Road. John Glenn Columbus International Airport measured an 82 mph gust.

Read that again: Upper Arlington took winds as strong as the tornado, over an area hundreds of times larger, from a storm that never formed a funnel. That is why the debris problem is regional and the tornado damage is a four-minute stripe through the south side.

“This is a very quick spin up tornado… by the time we were able to see it on radar, it was already doing damage.”

NWS meteorologist Christine Aiena, quoted by WOSU

The power outage numbers, with the qualifier most reports dropped

These figures get repeated without their denominators, which makes them wrong.

Mayor Andrew J. Ginther declared a citywide emergency on Wednesday 12 August. The Columbus Division of Fire took more than 1,100 calls that day, roughly double a normal day, and Ginther described it as one of the largest responses in the city’s history — the first time every Division of Fire unit was activated simultaneously.

The part nobody published: where the debris is allowed to go

Here is the finding that matters most, and it surprised us.

The City of Columbus never opened a special storm-debris collection programme. We went through the city’s own August 2026 extreme weather hub — it lists shelters, cooling centres, food assistance, SNAP replacement, outage maps and property-damage guidance. There is no special debris pickup on it. The city’s Property Damage page says this instead:

Private property damage is the owner’s responsibility.

City of Columbus, Extreme Weather August 2026 — Property Damage

Which means Columbus residents fall back on the ordinary yard waste rules. Those rules were written for a bag of hedge clippings, not for a 30-inch silver maple.

Columbus yard waste rules — the ones still in force

• Biodegradable paper bags or rigid containers marked “Yard Waste.” No plastic bags.
• Branches cut to less than 4 feet long
• Tied into bundles no wider than 2 feet, with string or twine
• No bag, container or bundle over 50 lbs
• Placed at the street kerb, at least 3 feet from other containers, mailboxes and vehicles

One widely-circulated local report adds that branches must also be under 4 inches in diameter, and that anything thicker has to go to a drop-off centre. We could not confirm the 4-inch figure on a City of Columbus page — the official yard waste card gives length, width and weight but not diameter. Treat the 4-inch rule as reported rather than verified, and ring 311 on 614-645-3111 before you drag a trunk section out.

Do the arithmetic on the 50 lb limit, though, because it does the work on its own. Green hardwood runs heavy. A single 4-foot length of green oak much over 6 inches through will exceed 50 lbs by itself. The weight limit quietly excludes almost everything a storm actually produces.

The two Columbus drop-off centres — and the line in the rules that costs you money

Reported locations and hours:

• Alum Creek Waste and Reuse Convenience Center, 2100 Alum Creek Drive
• Georgesville Waste and Reuse Convenience Center, 1550 Georgesville Road
• Reported hours: Tuesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Sunday and Monday)
• Accepts bushes, stalks, tree branches, untreated wood chips, vines, weeds without soil, leaves

These addresses and hours come from local reporting, not from a City of Columbus page we could open. Ring 311 to confirm before you load a trailer.

Now the line that matters commercially, and we would rather you heard it from us than found out at the gate:

Columbus residents only, material from their own home — commercial services and landscapers excluded.

Reported drop-off centre conditions

If you hire any tree service, that service cannot use the city drop-off centres. The debris has to go somewhere else, and somebody has to pay for that somewhere else. Any quote that does not say what happens to the wood is not a complete quote. Ask. If the answer is vague, ask again.

Nine jurisdictions, nine different rule sets

This is where central Ohio gets genuinely confusing. The rule that applies to you is set by the municipality your house sits in, and neighbouring cities disagree with each other on nearly every parameter.

Sourcing note: the Upper Arlington entry we verified on the city’s own site. The other eight come from local reporting compiled on 18–19 August. Programmes change, dates slip and one-pass runs finish. Ring the number in the last column before you act on any row of this table.

Three things in that table that will actually cost somebody money

One. Upper Arlington is one pass only. The city expects to collect roughly 50,000 cubic yards of debris, and the chipping run began on 17 August. If the truck has already been down your street, it is not coming back. The city’s instruction is also counter-intuitive: do not pre-cut your branches. Most people helpfully saw everything into short lengths and make it ineligible.

Two. Upper Arlington clears public property only. The city removes debris from public streets and public rights of way — street trees, park trees. Its own notice states that residents are responsible for tree debris on private property. Small cut pieces, branches in containers, general clippings, damaged fencing: none of it is taken.

Three. Westerville’s 2-inch limit and Whitehall’s 14-inch limit are seven times apart. A limb that Whitehall will take is one your neighbour two suburbs over has to pay to dispose of. There is no regional standard. There is not even a regional convention.

If you are outside a municipal programme, one reported self-haul option is Ohio Mulch — 4120 Roberts Road (614-921-9330) and 1600 Universal Road (614-445-4455) — reported as free for Franklin County homeowners with clean loads: no soil, treated lumber, railway ties, construction material, concrete or plastic bags. Reported, not verified. Ring first.

Why there is a tree lying in your garden that the power company cut down

This one produces more angry phone calls than anything else after a storm, and it is entirely by design.

AEP Ohio’s own outage FAQ says it plainly:

“Contractors remove fallen trees and limbs that are preventing service restoration. However, they only move storm debris that are hindering the restoration of power.”

AEP Ohio, Outages FAQ

And for anything else, AEP tells you to call “a local landscape or tree contractor.”

So the crew that arrived at 2 a.m. and got the street energised again cut your tree off the conductor, dropped it, and left. That is not a crew being lazy. That is the published policy. Their job was the wire. AEP’s tree FAQ states the same thing about routine work: after emergency storm restoration, the property owner removes the debris.

The Ohio Consumers’ Counsel puts the ownership question in one sentence:

“Trees are considered a homeowner’s property so consumers may have to make arrangements for debris removal at their own expense.”

Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, Utility Line Clearing and Tree Trimming

The Consumers’ Counsel also draws the line most people have never had explained: for the service drop — the wire from the pole to your house — the homeowner is responsible for trees near it. The utility typically only removes branches growing on or through those insulated lower-voltage wires. On the main distribution lines, the utility has a right to trim within its easement, even on private land, and that easement travels with the deed.

AEP Ohio clears its lines on a four-year cycle. If your tree is a problem for the wire and it is not the year, it is your problem.

We have written the full version of the who-owns-what question here: A Tree Just Came Down. Who Do You Call in Columbus?

The insurance sentence that decides whether you pay

There is one distinction in a standard homeowners policy that determines the entire outcome, and it has nothing to do with how big the tree was.

Did it hit something insured?

• Tree falls on the house, or on a detached garage or other insured structure — the damage is generally covered, and there is usually a separate, small allowance for removing the tree.
• Tree falls in the garden and hits nothing — there is generally no coverage for the removal at all.

The Insurance Information Institute describes the debris-removal allowance as “generally up to about $500 to $1,000, depending on the insurer and the type of policy” — and notes that some insurers will pay if the fallen tree blocks a driveway or a disabled access ramp even when it hit no structure.

Caveat, stated honestly: the clearest published version of that sublimit rule we could verify is an Insurance Information Institute release from 2008. It remains the industry norm, but the figures vary by carrier and the source is old. Read your own declarations page. The number is on it.

The practical shape of it: a 60-foot maple lying across your back garden that touched nothing is, under most standard Ohio policies, a bill you pay yourself. That is the single most common storm scenario and the one people are least prepared for.

“It was a storm, so nobody is liable” is not Ohio law

This is repeated between neighbours constantly and it is wrong.

Ohio applies ordinary negligence, and negligence turns on notice. Under Heckert v. Patrick (1984), 15 Ohio St.3d 402, an urban landowner owes a duty of reasonable care including inspection — the duty is described as “reasonable care relative to the tree, including inspection to make sure it is safe.” Columbus is urban. A rural owner has no affirmative duty to inspect and is liable only with actual or constructive knowledge of a patently defective condition.

And on the act-of-God defence, from Stevens v. Jeffrey Allen Corp.: a violent storm can be an act of God, but the defence is not automatic. The defendant has to prove the storm was the sole proximate cause. If the owner’s negligence combined with the storm, liability remains.

So a visibly dead, hollow or leaning tree that the neighbour had been told about does not become a free pass because an EF1 finished it off. If it hit your house, your insurer may pursue the neighbour’s carrier and may refund your deductible if it recovers.

The reverse warning applies just as hard. Under ORC 901.51, cutting or injuring a tree on somebody else’s land without privilege exposes you to treble — triple — damages. Tidying up the neighbour’s storm-damaged limb over the fence line is not a neighbourly gesture in the eyes of that statute.

Before you touch it: is it even your tree?

The tree between the footpath and the kerb almost certainly is not.

Columbus City Code Chapter 912 — rewritten and adopted on 11 December 2023, the first full revision in over thirty years — defines a public tree at §912.01(S) as “any tree growing on land owned by the city including lands defined as ‘public place’, ‘public street’, or ‘park’.” That includes the tree lawn.

And §912.05 is unambiguous:

“No person shall plant, set out, or engage in the maintenance of any tree or shrub by removal, stump grinding, application of herbicide… pruning… without first obtaining a permit.”

Columbus City Code §912.05

• The permit itself is free to apply for.
• But the property owner cannot apply. The Columbus Tree Technical Manual requires that “the Property Owner must hire a Certified Arborist, who will in turn apply for the Forestry Permit.”
• Work anywhere inside a public tree’s Critical Root Zone — a radius of 1.5 feet for every 1 inch of trunk diameter — needs the same permit.
• If a public tree is removed, mitigation applies: inch-for-inch replacement, or $260 per inch.
• Violating Chapter 912 is a misdemeanor of the third degree (§912.99).
• Boundary trees: if the majority of the trunk is on city land, the city maintains it.

On private property, Columbus requires no city permit to remove a tree. Private trees are not regulated citywide — unusual for a city this size. That does not clear historic-district review, an overlay condition or an HOA covenant, none of which we audited. If you are in a historic district, check.

There is also a provision pointing the other way that gets sharper after a storm. §912.08, Private Nuisance Trees, requires owners to promptly abate trees that are public nuisances, including trees interfering with public streets or obstructing visibility. That leaning private tree over the carriageway is not merely untidy — it is potentially an enforceable obligation.

Full breakdown of the rewritten code: Columbus Rewrote Its Entire Tree Code. Here Is What It Now Says.

File your damage — the deadline nobody advertised

Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security opened a resident storm-damage self-reporting tool for the 11 August event. What you report feeds the damage assessments that determine whether federal assistance arrives.

The form is at arcg.is/1u1bTr1, linked from the Franklin County website. No submission deadline is published on that page, which in practice means it can close without notice. If you have damage and have not filed, file today.

Where the federal process actually stands, stated precisely, because there is a lot of wishful reporting about this:

• 20 August 2026: Governor DeWine requested expedited federal damage assessments from FEMA and the SBA.
• Individual Assistance was requested for 18 counties, including Franklin.
• Public Assistance was requested for 16 counties, including Franklin.
• As of today, we found no approved federal disaster declaration for Ohio for this event.

A request for assessments is not a declaration, and a declaration is not a cheque. Anyone telling you FEMA money is available for your tree removal right now is either mistaken or working you. Do not sign anything on that basis.

The Governor’s own framing: “Ohio has been incessantly hit by storms since August 10, and without a break in the rain, the damage keeps building.”

The other thing that arrives after a derecho

On 12 August 2026, Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson issued a statement on storm-related scams:

“In times of disaster, Ohioans have plenty to worry about. They don’t need fraudsters trying to capitalize on their misfortune. Those who do will be held accountable.”

Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson, 12 August 2026

The rule that protects you, and the tell that gives them away

Ohio’s Home Solicitation Sales Act — ORC 1345.21 and 1345.23 — applies to door-to-door sales of $25 or more:

• You may cancel for any reason until midnight of the third business day.
• The seller must give you a signed written agreement plus a separate notice-of-cancellation form.
• The seller cannot begin the work until the three-day cooling-off period has ended.
• Refund within 10 days of receiving your cancellation.

That third point is the whole tell. A legitimate local company will hand you a written contract with the cancellation notice attached and will not mind waiting. The man who knocked on your door this morning, wants a signature and a deposit today, and proposes to start before lunch is arranging things so the cooling-off window never runs. That is the entire mechanism of the storm-chaser trade.

And a fact worth knowing before you compare quotes

Nobody licenses tree services in Columbus.

We checked both registers. The City of Columbus contractor licence list has no tree, tree service or arborist category — it issues General Contractor, Home Improvement General and Limited, Demolition, OCILB Contractor, plumbing, sign erector, sewer and water, fire contractor and special inspector licences. And the state OCILB licence covers only five trades: electrical, HVAC, hydronics, plumbing and refrigeration. There is no tree trade in either.

So “licensed” on the side of a truck means, at best, something other than tree work. What is actually verifiable:

1. A certificate of general liability insurance — sent to you by the insurer or the broker, not a photocopy handed over on the doorstep.
2. Ohio workers’ compensation coverage. If an uninsured climber is hurt in your garden, that exposure has to land somewhere.
3. ISA certification for whoever is assessing the tree.
4. Business registration — the city’s own guidance says to verify at ohiosos.gov and to check bbb.org.
5. A written contract before work begins, and never pay the full amount upfront.

One place a credential is legally required, worth remembering: any work impacting a public tree requires the owner to hire a Certified Arborist, who applies for the Forestry permit. If a contractor offers to take out your tree lawn tree without mentioning that, they either do not know the code or are not planning to follow it.

Ten days on: the damage that has not fallen yet

The trees that came down on 11 August have mostly been dealt with. The ones that were damaged on 11 August are still standing, and some of them are on a clock.

Four failure modes worth walking your garden for:

Hangers

A broken limb that did not reach the ground and is resting in the canopy. It is held by friction and small branches, both of which degrade. It will come down on a still day, without warning, and it is directly over whatever it is directly over. OSHA’s storm guidance is blunt about dead tops and hanging material for exactly this reason.

Lifted root plates

A tree that leaned in the wind and settled back can have a partly torn root plate with no obvious sign above ground beyond a slight crack or heave in the soil on the windward side. Its wind resistance is now a fraction of what it was, and the next storm does not have to be an EF1. ANSI Z133 requires that a qualified arborist inspect the root collar and surrounding area before anyone climbs, precisely because this is invisible from a distance.

Split unions and tension wood

Where a co-dominant stem started to split, the crack is often hairline and high up. And bent, broken and pinned wood stores energy. OSHA’s own wording on storm-damaged trees:

“If tree is broken and under pressure, make sure you know which way the pressure is going.” And on young trees that others have fallen against: they “act like spring poles and can propel back.”

OSHA, Hurricane eMatrix — Tree Trimming

Wood that has been in contact with a conductor

This is the one that has no visible signature to an untrained eye. ANSI Z133-2017 §4.2.7 states that wood “browned or charred” from previous electrical arcing or contact “should be considered likely to become re-energized without warning” and treated as energised. After a derecho that put hundreds of limbs onto conductors, that is not a theoretical category.

More on why central Ohio trees fail the way they do: What Central Ohio Windstorms Actually Do to Trees

Where the line is for a homeowner with a chainsaw

It is a specific distance and it is not a matter of judgement.

Ten feet. ANSI Z133-2017 §4.1.7 requires anyone not qualified by training and experience to maintain a minimum approach distance of 10 feet 0 inches, measured radially, from conductors at 50 kV and below. OSHA’s 29 CFR 1910.269(r) sets the same 10-foot minimum for unqualified persons, plus 4 inches for every additional 10 kV. AEP Ohio states it in plain language: “Don’t attempt to remove tree limbs or debris yourself if it is within 10 feet of a power line.”

Inside that ten feet, only a qualified line-clearance arborist works, only with insulated tools, and — above 750 volts — only with a second trained line-clearance trimmer within voice range.

The other numbers from OSHA’s storm-cleanup guidance, for the work that is nowhere near a wire:

• Keep everyone not essential to the job at least 20 feet beyond the expected drop zone.
• Adjacent work areas should be at least two tree lengths from the tree being felled.
• Never cut directly overhead.
• Hard hat, eye protection, gloves, proper footwear; add chaps and hearing protection for chainsaw work.
• And from the city’s own storm guidance: “Never operate unfamiliar power tools or chainsaws alone.”

A downed conductor also creates step potential — a voltage gradient in the ground around it. You can be injured walking toward a downed line without touching anything at all. Z133 requires specific training in recognising it before anyone does post-storm line-clearance work. Wind-blown leaves and limbs hide downed wires; AEP says so explicitly.

The numbers to keep

One correction worth flagging. The City of Columbus storm page lists the Ohio Attorney General as 1-800-828-0348 and the Department of Insurance as 1-800-686-1300. Neither matches the numbers those agencies publish themselves. Use 800-282-0515 for the AG and 800-686-1526 for ODI — taken from the agencies’ own documents.

What we could not verify

Listing this properly matters more than sounding certain.

• The Columbus drop-off centre addresses and hours. Local reporting only; we could not open a City of Columbus page carrying them. Ring 311.
• The 4-inch branch diameter rule for Columbus curbside yard waste. Reported, not on the official yard waste card.
• Eight of the nine suburban programmes in the table. Verified for Upper Arlington on the city’s own site; the rest from reporting dated 18–19 August. Ring before you act.
• A reported special Rumpke yard-waste run mentioned by city officials on 11 August. We could not confirm it and it would be long past. Do not rely on it.
• The signed text, legal authority and expiry of the Mayor’s emergency declaration. We could not locate the proclamation itself.
• The executive order adding Franklin County to the state emergency. News-reported on 13 August; we did not find the signed order.
• Any AEP “all customers restored” date for Columbus. No press release found.
• Whether Ohio has any state-level arborist registration. We verified only that Columbus and the OCILB have none.
• Whether Columbus historic districts or zoning overlays impose private tree conditions. Not audited.

This page is general information, not legal or insurance advice. Municipal programmes, dates and limits change without notice. Where a city, county, state or federal source contradicts anything here, that source is right and we will correct this page.

Sources

• National Weather Service Wilmington — Columbus EF1 damage survey and 11 August 2026 event page
• City of Columbus — Extreme Weather August 2026, Property Damage guidance and the yard waste information card
• City of Columbus — Contractor Licenses
• Columbus City Code Chapter 912, Trees and Shrubs and the Columbus Tree Technical Manual (May 2024)
• City of Upper Arlington — storm response and curbside chipping
• Franklin County Emergency Management and Homeland Security — resident storm damage report
• Office of Governor Mike DeWine — storm damage tour, 12 August 2026
• Ohio Attorney General — statement on storm-related scams, 12 August 2026 and Door-To-Door Sales / ORC 1345.21 and 1345.23
• AEP Ohio — Outages FAQ and Tree Clearing and Trimming FAQ
• Ohio Consumers’ Counsel — Utility Line Clearing and Tree Trimming
• Insurance Information Institute — If a Tree Falls on Your House, Are You Covered? (2008)
• Heckert v. Patrick, 15 Ohio St.3d 402 (1984); Stevens v. Jeffrey Allen Corp., 1st Dist. Hamilton (1997)
• Ohio Revised Code 901.51 — injuring trees on the land of another (treble damages)
• ANSI Z133-2017, Safety Requirements for Arboricultural Operations, §§3.4.8, 4.1.7 and 4.2.7
• OSHA — Hurricane eMatrix, Tree Trimming and Line-Clearance Tree Trimming Operations, 29 CFR 1910.269(r)
• Ohio Department of Insurance — consumer services
• Regional debris programme details compiled by WOSU and Columbus Navigator, 11–19 August 2026

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