Along came Ike
With the modern era of up to the millisecond world wide newsbites, it is easier to be thick skinned than to be a caring human being. I like to blame information overload for a lot of this, but I think Joseph Stalin actually summed the sentiment up better than I could anyway. "A single death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." Some facts are just too big to grasp. We observe the event, but we do not participate even to the point of an appropriate emotional response. We become, as a society, collectively numb especially when problems seem so very far away. Of course, reality doesn't always play by the rules we invent for it, does it? So, while I used to think that I appreciated the power of a hurricane I can now say that I truly appreciate it as I found out that the six hundred mile comfort zone that I thought existed wasn't nearly as vast as I imagined.
I suppose it is almost fitting that when I first started paying attention to Ike that I was sitting in an airport on September 11th contemplating how much I really did not want to be flying that day. Seven years later and people still look at the calendar nervously when that day rolls around. However, the reason I didn't want to be flying had little do with the date, honestly. It was just that it was a Thursday, I would be arriving home late, and I had to be at work early the next day.
I was in Minneapolis and I had just finished training and did not really have enough time to play tourist that day and still make my mid afternoon flight. So I had arrived at the airport earlier than necessary and was simply passing time at the gate until it was time to board my flight. I was reading a book on my PDA and was even debating turning on some music to drown out some of the ambient noise when I happened to catch the word "Galveston" coming from the large flat screen TV mounted on one of the walls. I remember looking up and feeling a bit sorry for the city to have this happen to them again and hoped they were better prepared this time than they were in 1900. Geeks often remember this storm because the aftermath was recorded by the first movie reel.
After acknowledging that the storm I had noted the week before had grown into a full fledged problem, I then did what the Western world does best when presented with a problem that is too large to handle. I ignored it. I stuck my nose back in my book and tried to tune out the distraction. An hour later I was in the air and an hour after that I was running through O'Hare Airport trying to make my connection. As I ran along I heard little snippets of news from various monitors.
"...Landfall predicted in..."
"... oil platforms destroyed . . ."
"...wind speeds up to 115 ..."
Truthfully, it was hard to pay attention. I had a laptop bag digging into one shoulder and I had thirty minutes to run from one terminal to another on opposite ends of one of the busiest airports in North America. When I did get to my gate, there were not TV giving the latest news with facts and figures scrolling across the bottom in easy to read ticker tape fashion. It was just a large room where people were standing around as every seat had been taken long before as they slowly led us onto the awaiting plane in a cattle call. I arrived late that evening and went home and tried my best to ignore the news before going to bed.
The next day at work we did talk about the hurricane, but mostly in context of how much it was going to make gas prices go up. No real talk about what the people we going through. No real context for what a hurricane was. When a hurricane does manage to come to our city it has generally weakened to the point that it arrives as nothing more than a pleasantly warm rain storm. It was an inconvience to us, nothing more.
The following day I spent cleaning house and contemplating updating this blog to tell about my trip to Minneapolis. On Sunday I finally sat down and considering writing. That was about the time that Ike rolled into town except he had brought a couple of friends.
I only found out about it after the fact, but apparently there were two frontal boundaries in the area that were so close together that when Ike arrived, even though it had been downgraded to a Tropical Depression by then, was funnelled into a tighter path and all the enegery of this storm was focused. The winds accelerated back up to 75 miles per hour which qualified this storm as a full fledged hurricane once more only this time it was over the middle of Kentucky.
The wind arrived around 11 AM on Sunday morning and just did not let up. The power flickered a few times and I suspected it would eventually go out and I was in my normal oblivious state where I was trying to do something unrelated. Namely, I was trying to finish a download before the power went out entirely. Well, I didn't quite make it as at about 1 PM the power finally went out for good. I worked for awhile on battery power on laptop and tried to wait for the power to come back. That's when I really began to notice that the wind was still going.
For hours the wind howled outside my house. Trees bent and swayed and debris rolled by. The rain never followed it. Places to the south, or so I have heard, got hammered by that as well. But here all we got was that eerie wind that just kept coming and coming. Soon I heard a sound that all home owners know and dread. That sickening thump and crash of something large and heavy striking your roof. I could tell by the volume alone that I would not like what I saw. When the storm died down later in that evening, I went out side to see. What did I see there? Well, take a look.
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This is the scene immediately outside my door. It is Autumn here so most of the ground cover here has already died off for the year. Those are leaves and branches from fallen trees. Yes, I realize the light is not the best.
Futher out I found this.
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That is one of many loose shingles I found in my yard. This would not be so distubing if I didn't recognize the shingles. I braced myself and went around back to see the rest of the damage. This is what I saw.
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My friends, that branch is from the tree in the background of the first picture and it fell over 50 feet and travelled laterally about thirty feet. And, yes, that is a hole you see in my roof.
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If that doesn't impress you, I want you to note this picture.
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That chimney in the very center had a domed cap. I found the cap later on the roof. Four welds had broken free for that to come loose. I don't think it was the branch that did it either.
There are other pictures, but it is mostly more of the same. You can see more extensive pictures from throughout the city here on the local newspaper's site.
During this storm over 400,000 people lost power in Kentucky. Over 310,000 of them were in the Louisville area alone. To put this in perspective, Louisville was a city that was hit during the Super Outbreak of 1974. During that time period there were fewer people who lost power than there are now. The destruction, over all, was probably greater but the difference was that damages from tornados tend to be more localized. This damage was widespread. Fallen power lines, I had been told, caused some places to actualy catch fire during the storm.
I waited and waited for power to be restored, but after several hours we had to start preparing for the dark. I brought out the world's worst charcoal grill (a wheel falls off at random and it seems to be custom made to make charcoal fires die out unexpectedly) and grilled out that night. Out of laziness, I left the grill out overnight. This turned out to be a good thing as I would need it again over the next few nights.
For emergencies we have a handful of flashlights and two oil burning railroad laterns. The lanterns are the brightest of these portable lights. In fact, before I climbed on my roof I made sure I went into my attic with one of these the next day to inspect the joists. My joists had previously been cracked by another limb hitting my roof and these had been braced and reinforced. Some of the bracing had shifted and needs to be hammered back into position, but overall it looked sturdy enough so I ventured up there to nail a plastic sheet over the damaged spot and get the limbs off my roof.
We survived the first night with no power. Only as we left the next morning and saw how widespread the damage was in the city did we begin to suspect we might be in for a long haul. My power was not restored until late Thursday. That is just over five days. We're probably some of the lucky ones as they say it may be 10 days to two weeks before the city is completely restored. This, unfortunately, is also the week that the city is hosting the Ryder's Cup (golf tournement).
Most of our local electrical crews were sent down as part of the relief effort for Galveston. No one expected the storm to cause damage this far north and crews had to be brought in from South Carolina. Trees were blocking roadways. Telephone lines were destroyed by falling trees. Cell phone towers were off line and the ones that were functioning were jammed. As large portions of the city were under blackouts the gas stations were also affected and this caused a gas shortage as trucks could not get to the stations and the functioning stations had extra demands. Gas prices shot up to almost $6 a gallon in some places. Grocery stores, hardware stores, and department stores were raided for camping an emergency supplies. Ice supplies became so low that one store I went to had to have a shipment brought in from Tennessee.
On day two the National Guard arrived.
For the past few days the city I call my home was more like a third world country than the 16th largest city in the USA. I drove past military figures directing traffic and patroling streets. Rumors of stations that were selling gas would cause frantic rushing to stockpile. Lines would form that would go out the door to purchase food and blocks of ice as people tried desperately to save what food was in their freezers.
I drove past shattered trees that littered the streets. Office buildings and homes had darkened windowws. Hand painted signs advertised restaurants were closed due to blackouts but the liquor store was still open despite the power outage.
I lost most of my food on day three as it had progressed to the point it was no longer recoverable. Probably $100 worth of food was was simply thrown into the garbage. We were forced to purchase extra batteries for the flashlights and extra ice for the dwindling food supply. Batteries cost us $36 and ice was an extra $16. I recieved word of a gas station nearby that had just recieved power and managed to refuel my car when I was driving on little more than fumes. Because of this valuable rumor, I was one of the lucky people who managed to keep my car running the entire time. We also had light the entire time because of the lanterns, but I do admit we were burning scented oil for the holidays by the end.
All in all, it was an interesting experience and it is a lesson in just how dangerous and unpredictable nature can really be. The city and I will recover. As soon as the noise settles down I plan to call my insurance agent and get my roof mended. I haven't drove over a downed power line in a few days and the tree that had been blocking a roadway leading to my house is finally gone. Power has been restored to most people and the city is gradually returning to normal. Only people have changed and I think it will be awhile before we consider ourselves truly safe just because there is a few hundred miles between us and a storm.
I suppose it is almost fitting that when I first started paying attention to Ike that I was sitting in an airport on September 11th contemplating how much I really did not want to be flying that day. Seven years later and people still look at the calendar nervously when that day rolls around. However, the reason I didn't want to be flying had little do with the date, honestly. It was just that it was a Thursday, I would be arriving home late, and I had to be at work early the next day.
I was in Minneapolis and I had just finished training and did not really have enough time to play tourist that day and still make my mid afternoon flight. So I had arrived at the airport earlier than necessary and was simply passing time at the gate until it was time to board my flight. I was reading a book on my PDA and was even debating turning on some music to drown out some of the ambient noise when I happened to catch the word "Galveston" coming from the large flat screen TV mounted on one of the walls. I remember looking up and feeling a bit sorry for the city to have this happen to them again and hoped they were better prepared this time than they were in 1900. Geeks often remember this storm because the aftermath was recorded by the first movie reel.
After acknowledging that the storm I had noted the week before had grown into a full fledged problem, I then did what the Western world does best when presented with a problem that is too large to handle. I ignored it. I stuck my nose back in my book and tried to tune out the distraction. An hour later I was in the air and an hour after that I was running through O'Hare Airport trying to make my connection. As I ran along I heard little snippets of news from various monitors.
"...Landfall predicted in..."
"... oil platforms destroyed . . ."
"...wind speeds up to 115 ..."
Truthfully, it was hard to pay attention. I had a laptop bag digging into one shoulder and I had thirty minutes to run from one terminal to another on opposite ends of one of the busiest airports in North America. When I did get to my gate, there were not TV giving the latest news with facts and figures scrolling across the bottom in easy to read ticker tape fashion. It was just a large room where people were standing around as every seat had been taken long before as they slowly led us onto the awaiting plane in a cattle call. I arrived late that evening and went home and tried my best to ignore the news before going to bed.
The next day at work we did talk about the hurricane, but mostly in context of how much it was going to make gas prices go up. No real talk about what the people we going through. No real context for what a hurricane was. When a hurricane does manage to come to our city it has generally weakened to the point that it arrives as nothing more than a pleasantly warm rain storm. It was an inconvience to us, nothing more.
The following day I spent cleaning house and contemplating updating this blog to tell about my trip to Minneapolis. On Sunday I finally sat down and considering writing. That was about the time that Ike rolled into town except he had brought a couple of friends.
I only found out about it after the fact, but apparently there were two frontal boundaries in the area that were so close together that when Ike arrived, even though it had been downgraded to a Tropical Depression by then, was funnelled into a tighter path and all the enegery of this storm was focused. The winds accelerated back up to 75 miles per hour which qualified this storm as a full fledged hurricane once more only this time it was over the middle of Kentucky.
The wind arrived around 11 AM on Sunday morning and just did not let up. The power flickered a few times and I suspected it would eventually go out and I was in my normal oblivious state where I was trying to do something unrelated. Namely, I was trying to finish a download before the power went out entirely. Well, I didn't quite make it as at about 1 PM the power finally went out for good. I worked for awhile on battery power on laptop and tried to wait for the power to come back. That's when I really began to notice that the wind was still going.
For hours the wind howled outside my house. Trees bent and swayed and debris rolled by. The rain never followed it. Places to the south, or so I have heard, got hammered by that as well. But here all we got was that eerie wind that just kept coming and coming. Soon I heard a sound that all home owners know and dread. That sickening thump and crash of something large and heavy striking your roof. I could tell by the volume alone that I would not like what I saw. When the storm died down later in that evening, I went out side to see. What did I see there? Well, take a look.
From Untitled Album
This is the scene immediately outside my door. It is Autumn here so most of the ground cover here has already died off for the year. Those are leaves and branches from fallen trees. Yes, I realize the light is not the best.
Futher out I found this.
From Untitled Album
That is one of many loose shingles I found in my yard. This would not be so distubing if I didn't recognize the shingles. I braced myself and went around back to see the rest of the damage. This is what I saw.
From Untitled Album
From Untitled Album
From Untitled Album
My friends, that branch is from the tree in the background of the first picture and it fell over 50 feet and travelled laterally about thirty feet. And, yes, that is a hole you see in my roof.
From Untitled Album
If that doesn't impress you, I want you to note this picture.
From Untitled Album
That chimney in the very center had a domed cap. I found the cap later on the roof. Four welds had broken free for that to come loose. I don't think it was the branch that did it either.
There are other pictures, but it is mostly more of the same. You can see more extensive pictures from throughout the city here on the local newspaper's site.
During this storm over 400,000 people lost power in Kentucky. Over 310,000 of them were in the Louisville area alone. To put this in perspective, Louisville was a city that was hit during the Super Outbreak of 1974. During that time period there were fewer people who lost power than there are now. The destruction, over all, was probably greater but the difference was that damages from tornados tend to be more localized. This damage was widespread. Fallen power lines, I had been told, caused some places to actualy catch fire during the storm.
I waited and waited for power to be restored, but after several hours we had to start preparing for the dark. I brought out the world's worst charcoal grill (a wheel falls off at random and it seems to be custom made to make charcoal fires die out unexpectedly) and grilled out that night. Out of laziness, I left the grill out overnight. This turned out to be a good thing as I would need it again over the next few nights.
For emergencies we have a handful of flashlights and two oil burning railroad laterns. The lanterns are the brightest of these portable lights. In fact, before I climbed on my roof I made sure I went into my attic with one of these the next day to inspect the joists. My joists had previously been cracked by another limb hitting my roof and these had been braced and reinforced. Some of the bracing had shifted and needs to be hammered back into position, but overall it looked sturdy enough so I ventured up there to nail a plastic sheet over the damaged spot and get the limbs off my roof.
We survived the first night with no power. Only as we left the next morning and saw how widespread the damage was in the city did we begin to suspect we might be in for a long haul. My power was not restored until late Thursday. That is just over five days. We're probably some of the lucky ones as they say it may be 10 days to two weeks before the city is completely restored. This, unfortunately, is also the week that the city is hosting the Ryder's Cup (golf tournement).
Most of our local electrical crews were sent down as part of the relief effort for Galveston. No one expected the storm to cause damage this far north and crews had to be brought in from South Carolina. Trees were blocking roadways. Telephone lines were destroyed by falling trees. Cell phone towers were off line and the ones that were functioning were jammed. As large portions of the city were under blackouts the gas stations were also affected and this caused a gas shortage as trucks could not get to the stations and the functioning stations had extra demands. Gas prices shot up to almost $6 a gallon in some places. Grocery stores, hardware stores, and department stores were raided for camping an emergency supplies. Ice supplies became so low that one store I went to had to have a shipment brought in from Tennessee.
On day two the National Guard arrived.
For the past few days the city I call my home was more like a third world country than the 16th largest city in the USA. I drove past military figures directing traffic and patroling streets. Rumors of stations that were selling gas would cause frantic rushing to stockpile. Lines would form that would go out the door to purchase food and blocks of ice as people tried desperately to save what food was in their freezers.
I drove past shattered trees that littered the streets. Office buildings and homes had darkened windowws. Hand painted signs advertised restaurants were closed due to blackouts but the liquor store was still open despite the power outage.
I lost most of my food on day three as it had progressed to the point it was no longer recoverable. Probably $100 worth of food was was simply thrown into the garbage. We were forced to purchase extra batteries for the flashlights and extra ice for the dwindling food supply. Batteries cost us $36 and ice was an extra $16. I recieved word of a gas station nearby that had just recieved power and managed to refuel my car when I was driving on little more than fumes. Because of this valuable rumor, I was one of the lucky people who managed to keep my car running the entire time. We also had light the entire time because of the lanterns, but I do admit we were burning scented oil for the holidays by the end.
All in all, it was an interesting experience and it is a lesson in just how dangerous and unpredictable nature can really be. The city and I will recover. As soon as the noise settles down I plan to call my insurance agent and get my roof mended. I haven't drove over a downed power line in a few days and the tree that had been blocking a roadway leading to my house is finally gone. Power has been restored to most people and the city is gradually returning to normal. Only people have changed and I think it will be awhile before we consider ourselves truly safe just because there is a few hundred miles between us and a storm.