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Local parks still suffering from winter ice-jam damage

Buttonwood Park in Perrysburg will not open this year.

It may be hot outside but believe it or not, ice jams are still causing problems along the Maumee River..

Back in February, Side Cut Metropark in Maumee experienced a lot of damage because of the ice jams and flooding. In the end, crews were able to clean up but not all parks have been successful in doing the same. 

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One of those parks is Buttonwood Park in Perrysburg. Officials from Wood County Parks said it's not going to open for the rest of the year.

Wood County Park Director Neil Munger said the damage is unlike anything they have ever experienced, so much so there is not enough money in the budget to make repairs this year.

Munger said the park board plans to invest in research how they can re-design the park so this damage can be preventable in the future.

On the other side of the river at Side Cut Metropark, things have been fixable

"You can still see some signs perhaps of what had transpired but pretty much everything was open by then but it has taken us even longer even into June to get a playground open because the surface have been damaged and we needed some dry weather in order to do that," said Scott Carpenter with the Metroparks.

Parts of the road throughout Side Cut had to be repaired and the walking trail was closed until late April. Repairs in total cost the Metroparks around $100,000. Side Cut is a flood plane so naturally it is meant to withstand these conditions. Still, the flooding made an impression on park experts. 

"We had probably the biggest flood that anyone on our staff can remember, and we've got staff members that go back more than 40 years! They can't remember the water being as high as it was!" Carpenter said. 

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