Ike's devastation reaches as far as Kentucky, Ohio

[maddezmom]

Ike's devastation reaches as far as Kentucky, Ohio
By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN and PAUL J. WEBER Associated Press
Sept. 20, 2008, 8:50AM
Share Print Email Del.icio.usDiggTechnoratiYahoo! BuzzGALVESTON — Shrimpers and oystermen lost their boats to the muck. Tourist areas on the coast that should be bustling at the start of convention season are flattened. Lingering power outages are keeping offices empty and restaurants closed from Texas through the Midwest.

It will take months or more to tally Hurricane Ike's financial toll, but one thing is clear: Almost nobody in its path escaped unscathed.

"Every industry has been impacted by this storm," said Jeff Sjostrom, president of the Galveston Economic Development Partnership.

The storm carried hurricane-force winds as far north as Kentucky — which suffered its widest power outage in history — and driving rain clear into New England. More than 500,000 people remained without power Friday in Kentucky and Ohio; schools in Louisville, Ky., were to open Monday after Ike closed them for a week.

Risk Management Assessment Inc., which quantifies risks for insurance companies, estimated Ike's impact would land in the low end of the $6 billion to $16 billion in insured losses that the firm initially predicted.

more:http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6012889.html

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Tell me about it

I suppose I should be thankful that the only devastation I suffered was the loss of food in my fridge & deep freeze, but it was quite a surprise to have 75-mph winds on a clear, sunny Sunday afternoon.

[drmeow]

2. Here's what my dad said about Pittsburgh

According to the national weather service, the remnants of Ike passed well
to the west and north of us.

Consequently, it had no effect on us - apart from generating winds that were
reported to gust above 70 mph.

According to the local papers, 130,000 people lost electrical power Sunday
evening, and today's paper says that quite a few of them still are without
power, perhaps until as late as Thursday. We were lucky. The power went off
twice in the space of about 15 minutes on Sunday evening, but both times it
came right back on. No harm done except to disrupt our recording of
Masterpiece Mystery on PBS.

However:

Sunday evening, one of the three trunks of the birch tree in our front yard
snapped off, but fortunately it didn't damage anything when it fell. I spent
a couple of hours yesterday cutting it up and then carted the debris off to
the yard recycle center, which is less than a mile from us.

Also on Sunday evening, we lost our telephone service, which meant no TV
(not a big loss) or Internet (yikes!) either. Service was finally restored
mid-morning today.

As we drove to exercise yesterday, we saw several trees that were uprooted,
including one that had crushed the roof of a car parked under it.

So that's the effect of a storm that misses us by a couple of hundred miles.
Then again, Ike was about 500 miles in diameter as it came ashore, so maybe
it's not surprising that it still had some "punch" at a radius of 200 miles
as it worked its way north