The Destruction caused buy Hurricane Ike.

[texasman6172003]

I just want to say i hope all of the people down in south Texas and the surrounding area's are doing well. I have been watching some of the news covarage on my Directv channel 361. This is local tv station KHOU out of Houston doing a remarkable job on the reporting of Ike. The damage caused buy this storm has been incredible. The luckiest thing to come out of it is on Galveston Island was not completely under water like they were afraid it would be. And the last i had heard there was only one reported death. Over 3/4 of the population decided to stay and ride out the storm. As for us up here we mainly just got rain,and the wind wasn't even as bad as they feared it would be. As the remnants of ike passed well to the east of us. I just hope all of my Texas neighbors are safe and sound. My prayer's and good thought's go out to y'all..

[Cherokee_Mountaincat]

Ah there you are, Tex! Was getting a bit worried bout you. *Insert smooch here*
I didnt know how close you were to the devistation. I've so very glad you are safe and well, Sugar. Talk to you soon. I have extended family in San Antonio, but I Think they were away from the effects of Ike.
Cat

[onewhocares]

Cat....I was like you. I have a certain Texy Sexy from this site for whom I was so concerned about the safety of he and his family I was up at five yesterday morning and prayed that his little neck of the woods was safe, SO SO thankful for the blessing in being saved.


Belle

[12voltman59]

Believe it or not---all day long today--we in the Ohio River Valley dealt with the remnants of Ike--we had almost hurricane force winds sustained all day long (sustained winds in the 40s, 50s and 60s with sustained gusts of hurricane force-74 mph or above) and many in this area are still without electricity--I have some incredible photos of some of the biggest waves I have ever seen on this lake--they would be rough ones on any of the Great Lakes or even in Coastal Waters in places like Florida.

I will post up some tomorrow---we are just getting electricty back here after being out for about seven hours or so---and I will have to get out the chain saws tommorrow--I have some parts of trees that are down.

When I was out on the the shore of an open section of the lake--I felt like Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel--the winds were moving me around!!

This is almost as bad as conditions I experienced living through Hurricane David back in 1979 in Savannah---it is something that a storm such as Ike can wreak havoc as far inland as Ohio and it is still moving northward---you do have to respect and be awed by nature!!!

I sure do feel for the folks down in the Gulf who dealt with this thing when it came ashore---I can bet this--the name Ike is going to be retired for while this might not have been a high category storm--it sure has left its mark.

I will post up some pics of "Hurricane Ike hits small Ohio inland lake" manana!!

[cutenewlybi]

Thanks for the up-date Tex...I was worried about you this last week...watching the damage the storm did...Well i am glad you are safe...

[12voltman59]

I am glad that all is well with ya Tex--

I watched the 11 O'Clock News here--and man--they say that people are out of electricity from Louisville and Lexington, Kentucky--north here into Ohio including Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus and most schools are closed tomorrow throughout this entire region.

The county Sheriff's in most counties in this part of the state have put out orders that prohibit driving for any other reason than absolutely having too for things like vital jobs--medical needs--things of that sort.

In our downtown-many of the windows of the high rise buildings were blown out and our original historic courthouse lost its roof and had some structural damage--which is something-- I thought the thing could take a direct hit by a nuclear bomb and be fine----we also had many commercial buildings with roofs blown off and front windows smashed out--many trees falling on cars and smashing them----

This is going to be one expensive storm in terms of money and in lives lost too and injuries--it is simply amazing!!!

[rissababynta]

What has been happening in San Antonio? My husbands family is all down there but for one reason or another he just hasn't called them yet to see how things have been and I don't keep up on natural disaster stuff enough to know about specific areas hit by anything...

[12voltman59]

Ike is now going to be the third most costliest hurricane on record after Andrew and Katrina---

And very destructive as well--it wiped out most of Gaveston Island and other Gulf side communities.

Here in this section of the country----many are still without power and will be for some period of time--up to two to three weeks they are saying. Water is being rationed in many area communities thanks to the power supply to the pumps being out still-we have a curfew in some areas.

I spent the entire day cleaning up the limbs and other things stirred up by what hit us---from about 7:30 am untill about an hour ago as darkness set in--I was finally wrapping things up.

As I said before--I am going to post up some photos I took during the height of our version of a dry hurricane--I can say that in terms of wind-the National Weather Service now officially tells us--from a wind standpoint---we did experience what would be equivalent to a strong tropical storm to a weak catagory one hurricane over a period of about 8 to 10 hours.

Here are the photos--first of some boys who went out in the storm on their "jet skis" and got into some trouble--the one machine went kaput and the boy on that one almost didn't get up on his buddy's boat--they got ticketed by the park rangers and local police--and then of a bass fisherman bouncing on the waves--finisihing up with a common scene-yet another downed tree-we had fire/EMS respond because when the tree fell--it had sparked a small fire in a transformer.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/P1080391.jpg

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This photo below was used several times on one of my local stations during the weather portion of various newscasts

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/P1080421.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/P1080481.jpg

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/P1080488.jpg

Sorry that the photos are all a bit blurry--with the conditions-it made it hard to capture nice clear photos--when I took those photos of the lake and the boats---that was a very exposed open area on a point and just like you see the news reporters being blown around---I had trouble standing upright or in one position--the wind was blowing that hard and I even had one gust that took me up and moved me about four or five feet!!! Thank god I landed on my feet--I might have been saying good bye to my camera at the least!!

[onewhocares]

Volty,

I am surprised at the stupidity of the kids on the water. It never ceases to amaze me at the density of people. I am glad they were ticketed. You capture the sheer volume of the storm.

Belle

[HighEnergy]

As of 6 pm last night, I was still without power in Dayton, Ohio. I've gone to a friend's 45 minutes from home to find power to work online, so I'm unsure if we have power at home or not yet. The kids are out of school again today, so I can stay here and work. They say it could be up to a week until it's on in our region because so many techs were sent to Texas.

We lost the tree in my front yard and watched my neighbor's roof rip off in chunks and land in her back yard and mine. As a realtor, I do broker price opinions for the banks and drove from one end of Dayton to the other in a big loop with the girls in the car with me. We saw incredible damage from the storm throughout the city.

Luckily I put in a gas stove last spring. It's been a blessing and this fall I am going to put in a gas fireplace so we have heat if we lose power over the winter. It's weird weather when a hurricane hits Ohio! My sister has a friend up here who's toilet water was sucked up through the vent stack during the worst of the winds.

I'm amazed how many stupid people were out in the wind. Trees are falling down and roofs were flying around, and folks are just walking around looking at it all. I kept yelling at the neighborhood kids to go home or come in my house, and only some listened. A neighbor of my ex's went out to clean up the limbs down in his yard when he was hit with another falling limb and carried away in an ambulance. Survival of the fittest!

[12voltman59]

Just an update from this neck of the woods--there are still thosands of people who don't have electricity---and some schools are still out since they either don't have power or water--the southern part of Montgomery County, Ohio don't have water because power to the pumps is still out---actually there is what water is left in the various storage tanks---but they have put a restriction on using it for anything other than personal use--they say you will get arrested if you are caught watering your lawn and or washing the car----they also are recommending boiling water when using it to drink-----

For rural areas where people have private wells and pumps that don't work since there is no juice----they are distributing water and ice---

For our area---this is has been a major deal----for a time---about half of Ohio was out of electricity and as I said--some are still out---my sis and her husband live in the city limits of Cincinnati and they aren't expected to have power in their part of town back until Saturday!!

But life is starting to return to "normal" for many people finally---I have pretty much gotten the tree limbs all taken care of ---I have either burnt it up or have it set out the piles of the bigger stuff for the lawn service people to take and dispose of.

It was a few hard days of work--my body is sore and stiff!!! LOL

Now I am just picking up the zillons of twigs and sticks that blew out of the trees--thankfully we didn't lose any more trees---but I am waiting for the tree service guy to come take a bunch of stuff out of a few of them---he doesn't know when he is going to get to me since I don't have an immediate emergency situation of having a tree on the house or something!!

[Cherokee_Mountaincat]

I feel for all of those people, Volty. :( I know what its like to be in a storm situation and not have even the simplest of eminities. :( I pray to God and the Spirtis for their safety and hopefully, they'll get power back soon. Thank you for keeping us up-dated Sugar.
And stay out of that wind! lol
Hugz
Cat

[12voltman59]

A few more pictures from Sunday's storm:

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r216/mpgarr/P1080435.jpg

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