My cousin Leslie and her family in Houston went to Austin for a wedding around the time of Ike; they are still waiting for power so they can return. But this news from Mom in Indiana threw me for a loop:
The remnants of Ike hit Indiana pretty hard. Nothing compared to Texas, of course. The devastation in Galveston and surrounding areas is hard to comprehend from a distance. Last Sunday we had high winds and rain. In fact, Indiana had the second highest death toll after Texas as a result of Ike. Five people died from falling trees and two others from other reasons. A number of schools were closed on Monday and some for another day or two. People were out of power too. Most of this was south of where we live. We only had small branches and twigs to pick up.
And to think Indiana is where we’ve taken refuge from two hurricanes. I always figured Indiana was so far inland as to be immune to serious damage from tropical systems, but obviously not. And there are still thousands of people in Indiana without electricity.
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Ohio was hit too. We went to Ohio for Gustav only to hear from my folks that they haven’t had power for five days! And a neighbor’s tree fell into their yard taking out one of their trees too. I offered up the generator that we brought home with us from Ohio after Gustav.
louisville, ky – which is where i have been living for the past 3 years since katrina (i just moved back home in july) – got hit really hard by the ike-remnant windstorm. they had 75mph winds for several hours. trees down all over the city, taking power lines down. 300,000 without power initially; five days later, still about 100,000 suffering without. lots of smashed cars and houses (by trees).
i had the same reaction as you. louisville was where we were headed evacuating from gustav. (we didn’t make it there, due to contraslow and our car breaking down.) and all our friends and family up there knew of my story, having evacuated from katrina, and had just heard our saga of evacuating from gustav. little did they know they’d end up experiencing a slice of the hell we all go through down here every so often due to storms. at least for them, there was no rain or flooding associated with it, though it made it even more freaky for it to solely be this massive windstorm.
apparently it was completely unexpected, too. the weather forecasters had only thought they would get gusts of up to 40-45, which, while blustery, isn’t nearly the same as 75mph.
also, our friends in cincinnati have given very similar reports.
Friends of mine in Central Ohio lost power on Monday and are still without it. Schools, hospitals, libraries, etc. got their power restored first, but most residential neighborhoods are still dark.
I got the same news from my brother in Little Rock. Lots of people without power. Ike was a bad storm for a lot of the country.
This is the first time in my memory that the remnants of a hurricane hit the area with more than rain.
We were lucky and only had a 23 hour power outage, most of the town just got online a day or 2 ago.
Is it global warming to blame? I don’t know, but I do know we have a real change in our environment.
My in-laws live in Munster (extreme northern Indiana, on the IL border). The culmination of a few bad storms around the time of Ike has left them homeless. Four feet of water in the basement, and one foot in the main level. They won’t be home for months, if at all.
This isn’t in the middle of nowhere – it’s on the outskirts of Chicago, right near Hammond and Gary. The river levees broke, leaving the town underwater and the expressway into Chicago shut down. Now, houses are catching fire from gas line problems, etc. We’re all reeling.
Yeah, the Calumet Region got all kinds of effed up.
we were w/out power for about 40 hours- my mom (in b-town as well) was w/out power for about 75 hours. more wind than rain all the way up here… crazy stuff.
I have a friend from Ireland who once told me how the hurricanes in October and November that miss us because of the first Northern Cool fronts, wind up coming their way to the UK
Not only was that a real W. T. F. ? Moment but it got me to thinking in a bigger picture.
When I saw Ike’s inland path I called my whitewater canoeing buddy in the Ozarks and asked him if he was geared up for a paddle.
I’m sorry to say I didn’t follow Ike’s inland path much after that.
Thank you for the reminder.
It’ seems that no city has experienced as much damage from failed levees as New Orleans since the flood in South Dakota? I’m not totally sure. But in the midwest we’ve had a lot of rural flooding the last couple years. All indicating that the country’s priorities need to include smarter flood control and environmental planning.
Oh yeah, global warming maybe and ending the war too. 573 billion dollars would buy a lot of levees and health care.
Pittsburgh and the surrounds got hit pretty hard as well: probably about 180,000 without power, school closings and delays in effect, etc.
I lost power for about 22 hours, about 18 hours more than most of my neighbors, so, all in all, we fared fairly well. Beaver County to our north got hit hard enough to declare a state of emergency: http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2008/09/17/ap5437361.html
I was surprised to see the dairy section of the supermarket with big holes in it last night. They had a sign saying that it was a result of dairy spoiling due to power outages.
In 2005 (?) a couple of hurricane-remnants slammed Baltimore and DC and I knew folks in Bmore who were out of power for a week or so…