BUTLER TWP — Due to multiple trees down and “widowmaker” limbs waiting to fall during the next breeze, Preston Park will not reopen until at least January and very likely later.

Cheryl McNeill, assistant township manager, said on Wednesday that safety concerns resulting from Winter Storm Avery closed the park and will keep it unavailable to the public until those concerns are mitigated.

The biggest safety concern are the broken branches high in the park's trees that snapped due to the storm's heavy snow and ice, but didn't break off.

“When we're out there in any kind of weather, there are still branches coming down,” McNeill said, “so, we can't let people out there.”

She said that, miraculously, none of the notable trees planted by longtime property owners Frank and Jane Preston were destroyed in the storm.

Employees were unable to count the number of trees that came down, split or are leaning precariously after the storm.

“It is so significant, you can't even count them,” McNeill said.

She explained that because coniferous trees are more flexible and hardwoods, such as oaks, had intact leaves that held the heavy ice and snow, the most damage was mainly to deciduous — leaf-bearing — trees.

One large tree fell on a row of three employees' parked vehicles, destroying the car that took the brunt of the tree's weight and slightly damaging a second vehicle. The employees were not inside their cars at the time, McNeill said.

Some trees among the hundreds at the park had been marked earlier by professional forest managers to be cut down, and the park must now be assessed to determine which, if any, of those trees were taken out by the storm.

The township public works crews have helped out with cutting dangerously leaning trees or limbs as much as possible, McNeill said, and tree services remain extremely busy since the storm's wrath.

“We're going to get the professionals out there to have a look around,” McNeill said.

The park was originally closed because so many trees were laying across the many walking trails, but the loosely hanging limbs are keeping it closed, McNeill said.

“Some of those limbs are as big as trees,” she said.

Regarding the nonforest features of the park, McNeill said the poles on a few signs were bent, but no damage was done to the historic Preston home or other buildings.

During Frank Preston's heyday in the 1930s, the property off South Eberhart Road had the largest number of varied coniferous trees east of the Mississippi, according to Preston Park history.

Preston was an engineer, ecologist and conservationist from England who helped to acquire the property for Moraine State Park. He was also a cofounder of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. He died in 1989 at the age of 92. His widow, Jane, left the property to Butler Township upon her death in 2008.

About 10 years ago, seven of the trees at Preston Park were designated as the largest in the state, but time, growth-rate changes and tree damage across the state might have rendered that fact to be no longer accurate, McNeill said.

Still, none of the trees that are especially cherished by staff were destroyed in the storm.

“Not that we're aware of,” McNeill said.