I heard on the news yesterday that Cincinnati received hurricane force winds from Ike. That's something. Here in West Virginia we got some decent wind gusts maybe in the 30 mph area but nothing like Cincy received.
I heard on the news yesterday that Cincinnati received hurricane force winds from Ike. That's something. Here in West Virginia we got some decent wind gusts maybe in the 30 mph area but nothing like Cincy received.
Ike hammers the Midwest; fate of those on Bolivar Peninsula still unknown
Posted by: JeffMasters, 10:47 AM EDT on September 15, 2008
Ike caused plenty of trouble Sunday over the Midwest. High winds near Cincinnati killed one person and caused about 1.3 million people to lose power in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. A Delta Airlines hangar at the Cincinnati airport lost its roof, and the airport control tower had to be evacuated. Flooding and high winds in Missouri and Illinois caused at least two storm-related deaths. Ike surprised Louisville, Kentucky, with sustained winds of 40 mph with a gust to hurricane force, 75 mph, at 1:56 pm CDT. Ike swept into western New York early this morning, knocking out power to 45,000 people and doing about $100 million in damage.
Part of the destruction wrought in the Midwest and Northeast was also due to the remnants of Eastern Pacific Tropical Storm Lowell. Lowell hit Mexico's Baja Peninsula earlier in the week, and the moisture from the storm flowed northeastward up the axis of a cold front sweeping across the U.S. This same cold front also absorbed Ike. Some peak wind gusts observed yesterday from Ike:
Louisville, KY 75 MPH
Covington, KY 74 MPH
Huntingburg, IN 67 MPH
Fort Knox, KY 64 MPH
Owensboro, KY 63 MPH
Walnut Ridge, AR 62 MPH
Popular Bluff, MO 61 MPH
Cincinnati/Lunkin, OH 61 MPH
Some peak storm rainfall totals for various states, as of 10 PM CDT on Sunday:
Houston, TX: 15.75"
Glenmore, LA: 7.62"
Clinto, AR: 8.93"
Maize, KS: 11.44:
Fairview, KS: 11.83"
Oakland Mills, IA: 7.60"
Peotone, IL: 10.40"
Portage, IN: 11.46"
South Haven, MI: 6.68"
Mill Creek, OH: 7.08"
Murrysville, PA: 5.41"
Genoa City, WI: 3.25"
Falls City, NE: 3.39"
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...&tstamp=200809
The Bolivar Peninsula
If you take a ferry from Galveston northeast across the Galveston Bay inlet, you arrive at the small town of Port Bolivar, which sits at the end of the 25 mile-long Bolivar Peninsula. Since the peninsula was situated on the right front side of Ike's eye, it took the worst of the storm. The Hurricane Hunters measured 110 mph winds at the shore when Ike made landfall, and Ike's highest storm surge hit the peninsula. The exact height of the storm surge is unknown, since there were no tide gauges there. Based on reports of a storm surge of 11 feet at Galveston Island and 13.5 feet at the Louisiana/Texas border, it is likely that storm surge heights along the Bolivar Peninsula were 15 feet or higher. Photos taken by the Coast Guard yesterday (Figure 2) of the Bolivar Peninsula show damage characteristic of a 15+ foot high storm surge--homes washed off their foundations and completely destroyed. The hurricane probably cut new channels through the peninsula, and it will be difficult for rescuers to reach the area.
Some have criticized the National Weather Service for overwarning, with their pronouncement of "certain death" for those who ignored evacuation orders. Well, I don't think anyone in the Bolivar Peninsula will complain that they were overwarned. While death was not certain among those who weathered the storm in houses pulverized by the storm surge, it was probable. According to the New York Times, one Bolivar Peninsula resident was washed all the way across across Galveston Bay to the mainland after the storm surge destroyed his house and threw him into the water. A helicopter picked him up. So far, there are two confimed deaths on the peninsula, from the town of Port Bolivar. The peninsula had a population of 3,800, of which 500 did not evacuate. As many as 90 people were rescued from the peninsula in the hours leading up to the storm, but at least 400 people remained. Most of these people are as yet unaccounted for. According to news reports, 80% of the buildings on the peninsula were destroyed.
The moral: we don't know precisely where a hurricane will hit, which necessitates dire warnings for portions of the coast that will not receive the worst of the storm. The worst of a hurricane affects only a relatively narrow portion of the coast. And the worst of Hurricane Ike--the third most damaging hurricane of all time--was very, very bad indeed.
Louisiana
Hurricane Ike hit Louisiana very hard. The entire coast of Louisiana from Grand Isle at the mouth of the Mississippi River to the Texas border received a storm surge between 5 and 13 feet. In many cases, such as in Lake Charles, the flood heights were higher than those of Hurricane Rita in 2005. Terrebonne Parish in central Louisiana, which took a direct hit from Gustav but did not get flooded by that storm, got a 5-8 foot storm surge from Ike. The surge flooded over 13,000 homes and killed at least two people in the parish.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...&tstamp=200809
One middle-aged man was washed from his home on Crystal Beach all the way to the mainland, where he was spotted by National Guard troops in a helicopter and picked up.
“That’s the only miracle we’ve had so far,” said the Chambers County sheriff, Joe LaRive. “When the water picked up his house, he floated out a window and hung onto a piece of wood all night long, and he saw fish and alligators and fire ants.” The man was treated and released from a nearby hospital, Sheriff LaRive said.
Randy Faulkner, a volunteer firefighter on Crystal Beach and a member of the Gulf Coast Search and Recovery team, said Bolivar had been all but forgotten even though it had received the brunt of the storm surge. “There’s a lot of devastation in Galveston, don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Faulkner said. “But the peninsula, it’s gone.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/us...=1&oref=slogin
This is the latest update from the Dayton area 225,000 customers still without power that is not even counting the much larger number without power in the Cincinnati area.
http://www.daytondailynews.com/n/con...8powerweb.html
Dayton Power & Light is giving a new estimate of area customers who are without power — 225,000 people total.
DP&L spokeswoman Mary Beth Weaver gave the number at about 11:15 a.m. Monday, Sept. 15. She said the new number was determined as crews assessed damage after daylight arrived.
"We discovered a lot more damage and destruction and a lot more lines down," Weaver said.
The previous number was 180,000 people without power. The new number is just over half of DP&L's customers in this region, Weaver said.
The southern part of the DP&L service area — including Montgomery, Greene and Preble counties — were hardest hit, Weaver said. She could not give a county-by-county rundown of how many residents were dealing with outages.
She said DP&L contractors who had been sent to Texas to help with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike have been recalled to the Dayton area. As well, utilities crews from Oklahoma and Virginia are on their way to the area, Weaver said.
The difficulty for Dayton's electric power service provider was not just the power of Sunday's severe winds — which knocked down more than 50 transmission poles, said DP&L spokeswoman Tom Tatham — but how widespread that damage was, stretching from the Cincinnati area north to Shelby County and beyond.
"I've been here 23 years, and it's the worst I've ever seen," Tatham said earlier Monday morning.
DP&L's Web site is cautioning its customers that restoration would take "multiple days."
"DP&L is working around the clock," a message on the company's Web site said Monday. "This will be a multiple-day restoration effort. Please plan accordingly."
He said DP&L said has been working with area hospitals "all night" to ensure their power. He said all hospitals have back-up generators in any case, but he believed all metro-area hospitals were back on DP&L service by 9:30 a.m.
After hospitals, the priority for DP&L crews are water-pumping stations and water services, Tatham said. Then, the provider's high-voltage transmission and distribution system, which brings power in from power plants to substations to feeder circuits, is also a high priority, he said.
"We have more than 50 transmission poles that are down," he said.
He cautioned residents to assume that downed lines are electric, alive and energized. People should stay away from them, he urged.
He also said that if customers are using portable generations, they should take precautions, such as ensuring proper ventilation for the generators.
The Web site for Duke Energy, which provides power from Greater Cincinnati to the Montgomery-Warren counties line in the Springboro and Franklin areas, said it had seven Montgomery County customers without power.
Duke's site said it has 52,901 Warren County residents without power, down from 66,129 who had lost power since 10:41 a.m. Sunday. In Butler County, 110,126 residents were powerless, down from 138,733 who had lost power sometime since shortly before 11 a.m. Sunday.
Cable television
Time Warner Cable crews will work to restore service to affected Dayton-area customers by following Dayton Power & Light crews as they restore service in the area, said Pam McDonald, a spokeswoman for Time Warner's Cincinnati office.
"Obviously, that's our service area, too. We've got thousands of customers who are currently without service," McDonald said shortly before 11 a.m. Monday Sept. 15.
She cautioned that once power is restored, there may be a lag to restoration of cable service, depending on damage to cable lines and infrastructure around homes. She said there is no way to predict when all cable customers will once again see service.
"This is life-altering," McDonald said of Sunday's massive wind storm.
Gas service
However, there was no interruption to natural gas service to some 318,000 Vectren customers in the Dayton area, said Chase Kelley, a spokeswoman for Evansville, Ind.-based Vectren.
"Gas leak-wise, it looks pretty good," Kelley said.
Hospitals have power
Local hospitals reported being on regular power Monday morning, Sept. 15, following a stormy day of power outages, temporary switches to generators and crowded emergency rooms.
Dayton Power & Light restored regular power at Greene Memorial Hospital on Sunday, said Michelle Perry, spokeswoman for Greene Memorial Hospital in Xenia.
The hospital also opened its east wing for nearby residents who needed power for medical needs, such as oxygen and medicine that requires refrigeration, she said.
Children's Medical Center of Dayton is "fully operational," spokeswoman Betsy Woods said. But due to power outages and wind damage, its Springboro Testing Center, Beavercreek Testing Center and Urgent Care South at Lamplighter Square in Kettering are closed Monday.
Other health facilities closed today because of storm damage or power issues are the Dr. Charles Drew Health Center, 1323 W. Third St., and the Child Health Clinic at the Southview Child-Family Center, 25 Thorpe Drive in Dayton.
On Monday, Good Samaritan Hospital, Kettering Medical Center and Southview Hospital have power on Monday.
Miami Valley South Health Center in Centerville remained on emergency generators Monday, spokeswoman Nancy Thickel said. The generators should be able to sustain the center "for days" and patient services will go on without disruption, she said.
Thickel said Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton never lost power, but saw several patients with storm related injuries. The hospital also accepted patients from other hospitals who needed CAT scans, she said. Generators don't produce adequate energy to power the machines, she said.
Excellent slideshow of Ike images here.
/r/reds
from houston chronicle website
I just got my power back on at 5 AM this morning. It was out for almost 2 full days. I live in the Sharonville area. The winds Sunday reached 84 mph in some parts of Cinci. Pretty amazing. My fence blew down. I used to live in Orlando and sat through 2 hurricanes down there. It was similar here, without the rain.
"....the two players I liked watching the most were Barry Larkin and Eric Davis. I was suitably entertained by their effortless skill that I didn't need them crashing into walls like a squirrel on a coke binge." - dsmith421
We had gusts of probably around 60 on Sunday in Piqua in Ohio - the power went off a couple of time very, very, very briefly - but that was enough to shut off the cable for about a day.
There were some times when I could hear the foundation of this 200-year-old house creaking mightily - yet, still, I cannot imagine being ashore when one of those things hits the coast. That was a very though storm.
I was in Cincinnati Sunday. Those winds were definitely as strong as the ones I have experienced during a hurricane, although only in short bursts. We stood on my parents' deck and watched shingles from their house getting ripped up, flying across the street. They are up on a hill, over the river and I'm guessing they had the same wind gusts measured at the airport, which is directly south of them.
Next Reds manager, second shooter. --Confirmed on Redszone.
Atlantic hurricane outlook for the last half of September
Well, we've just come out of a long and intense period of hurricane activity--29 straight days with a named storm in the Atlantic, with all four of these storms--Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Ike--causing heavy damage and inflicting high death tolls. The last time we had such an active period was in 2005, when we went 56 straight days from August 2 to September 26 with a named storm in the Atlantic. Katrina, Ophelia, and Rita all made landfall during that period. Fortunately, even the busiest hurricane seasons take a breather. We had a 4-day break in 2005 at the end of September. This year, we look to get a longer break of 7-10 days.
Climatologically, the last half of September is one of the busiest periods in the Atlantic for hurricane activity. The peak of the season occurs on September 10, and the entire month of September is very active, with a high chance of dangerous major hurricanes (Figure 2). Sea Surface temperatures and oceanic heat content are at their peak right now, and have not begun to cool yet. Wind shear is near average or a little below average over most of the tropical Atlantic, and is forecast to remain so for the next two weeks. The peak portion of hurricane season lasts until mid-October, and I anticipate that we have at least one more major hurricane coming, and probably 4-5 more named storms.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/Jef...&tstamp=200809
A before and after picture of Crystal Beach, Texas:
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