Hurricane Ike hits

that hurricane came in on the east texas coast. but, it didnt stop there. i dont know exactly how hard texas got hit, but i've got a good idea of it affected us. i just now got my electric power back. it's been off since sunday morning about 9:30 a.m.

this was one of the strangest storms i've ever seen or been in. it was all wind and no rain. and this wind was formidable and very widespread. we had trees down all over the county and counties surrounding. according to the newspaper, over 80,000 people were without power after the storm. estimates are as long as a week for everyone to get power back. 80,000 may not seem like a lot compared to a city of millions, but this being a very rural area, that's a lot. disaster areas were declared in three counties, including ours.

i may post some pictures later, but to give you an idea of the power of this storm, i could barely stand up in it without having to take a step every once in a while to stay standing. while standing on a bridge over the nearby river, i took a picture of a lock and dam just downriver... the water was blowing UP the dam. i couldnt stand on the bridge the wind was so strong and the bridge itself was shaking and rumbling pretty good and i didnt stay too long

so, sunday morning to midnight tuesday... it's amazing how much we take electricity for granted.

hi sjeiti,

no, trees hit my house or vehicle. i did have limbs down in the yard, but nothing major. out at my dad's place, though, we had a giant 100+ year oak tree fall over and another one across his driveway. that old oak was huge and i know where we'll get firewood this year i'll try and post a decent pic of that oak later. still havent unloaded my camera.

where do you live that you're a few meters below sea level?

i'm in western kentucky, steve. ike came in around galveston, texas, but ran up the west side of the mississippi and brushed us pretty good.

you're up early

yes, we've had remnants of hurricanes come up here before. the really odd thing with this one was that there was no rain. we didnt even get a 1/10th of an inch of rain with all this huge winds. quite unusual.

ah, up late. ok. good night, then

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StevieJ wrote: I'm gonna take a wild guess and say Holland

Good guess, and even technically correct because Holland is actually only two provinces in the Netherlands, both below sea level. There's three other provinces that are (partly) below but the other six are luckily all above sea level. I'm one of the stupid idiots who moved from higher ground to Amsterdam.

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Sjeiti wrote: both below sea level

the rising sea levels forcasted with global warming are going to be a problem for you guys

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Daniel Ramsey wrote: look forward to the pictures.

yep they've got my curosity

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Kraellin wrote: that hurricane

the Tornados you have in the US look scary as well glad you came through okay

this next one is of the 100+ year old oak i mentioned. this was on our property and blocking part of our driveways. it was one of those HUGE oaks you see around and was rotten in the middle, which is why it was blown down. nonetheless, it's pretty impressive to think that just wind did this.

and then this one will give you even better scale. the trunk if off to the right, unseen in this one.

look carefully on the left and you'll see the top branches, then follow that back to the right. some of the branches were stripped when the tree fell and it also uprooted another tree when it fell. this was one old oak and i'm kinda sorry to see it go, but it will sure make for a hell of a lot of good firewood this winter

thanks, carl

yes, this is a pretty nice area around here. i keep calling it kentucky's best kept secret

i'm more near louisville and even closer to owensboro.

yes, kentucky is a fairly low population. so, owensboro with its 50 or 70,000 is, by comparison to big metropolitan areas, quite small, but yes, is third largest, i think... or fourth, i forget.

oh, and you mentioned i'm close to steve. where does steve live?

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Sjeiti wrote: I'm one of the stupid idiots who moved from higher ground to Amsterdam.

Any flooding ever occure there???

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Carl wrote: glad you came through okay

+2

Not too too bad, eh Craig??? Thanx for the pics.....

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Kraellin wrote: where does steve live?

Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA.....where they shot the movie "The Perfect Storm".....this is what I'm looking at from my back yard.....

Glad your okay though Craig!

Cool pictures, kinda reminds me of when I lived in London as a teen, and we had a really bad storm across England, was during the late 1980's.

Mind weather has been pretty strange on and off for a while. Local town got badly flooded two saturday's back, happened in a matter of minutes, they didn't even have warning.

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Kraellin wrote: so yer a fisherman, eh steve?

Nope.....just like the view......especially how the harbor is lit up at night.....

The movie was shot over crossed the harbor to the right in the downtown area.....

We had a film crew right out on that dock in the foreground of that pic a few months ago.....Sandra Bullock and some other stars were out there.....the Papparazzi (sp?) were everywhere because some drunk woman crashed her car into Bullock's limo......it was pretty crazy around here for about a week while they were shooting.....

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Beliria wrote: lucky you living there!!

It has a downside.....the occasional odor of rotting fish from those fish processing areas, state pier, Mortons, etc.....when the wind blows in my direction.....it can get bad......especially when it gets hot during the summer.....

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Was wondering why the forum's had gone quiet . Pretty bad being without electricity for so long though..

when i wasnt sleeping, i was climbing the walls

FF-less, psp-less, lights-less, icebox-less, t.v.-less, ... it's amazing how dependent we've become on electricity and how for granted we take it.

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Carl wrote: True, there are things you don't even think of - our home phone is cordless type with a base station and a numder of handsets, no power and the base station doesn't work so no phone to even report power outage

Thing is standard cable phones you can get cheap, might be worth investing in one for emergencies, that and a wind up radio, um.. and a whole heap of stuff that would probably fill a room!.. Just in case you need them that is..

Ah well just get a hampster, and link it's wheel to the door or something like that and you may have it open by.. very very slow hampster power

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Carl wrote: Well sure that why I've got the bomb shelter mmmmmmmmmm the electric door might be a problem though

Okay Carl.. you sure that's a bomb shelter and not your Garage?

hehe, elvis hamster

Carl, buddy.....hope you are okay???