Sunday, September 21, 2008

Videos as Ike Hits Ohio

Exactly one week ago, Ohio was hit with, according to the words of our power company spokesperson, "an unprecedented" windstorm. Winds were sustained at 40-50 miles per hour with gusts reaching 70 miles per hour. The winds continued over a three to four hour period. As a result, tree limbs fell on power lines all over central and southwestern Ohio, causing numerous power outages. Megan and I waited five days for power to be restored.

From weather underground, the absolute best weather site on the internet, here is the raw data for the storm, as recorded at Ohio State Don Scott Airport, about two miles directly west of us.



The second and third graphs tell the story. Take a look at how quickly and how low the barometric pressure dropped on September 14. And in the third graph, you can see wind speeds. The sustained winds on that day were 40 miles per hour, lasting for several hours, with gusts recorded at Don Scott around 60 miles per hour.

What happens with all that wind? Tree limbs fall.

Here I'm shooting a video from our porch. The most interesting thing about this storm was that there was no rain, so the whole neighborhood was tempted to go outside and watch what was happening. In this video, you'll see our neigbhor's silver maple. The branches lying at the end of our driveway had just fallen, missing our neighbor (not the boy running around in the video) who had walked down our driveway by about a minute. He was lucky, several other Ohioans weren't so and were killed by this storm.




Our resident gray squirrels seemed to take advantage of the windstorm, fetching up newly fallen bur oak acorns. This individual is resting atop one of the limbs we lost from our giant bur oak in the storm. Fortunately, it missed hitting the house by three feet, but it did take out our cheap plastic Adirondack chairs. Take a look at how much debris is in the backyard of our neighbor. Normally, I wouldn't be able to see it, but the wind blew down the privacy fence between our two yards.


This is my contribution to this weeks "Camera Critters" meme.


The winds died down about 8:00 p.m. We thought the power might not come on for a day or two, but we weren't expecting to be in the dark for five hours. The talk of the town was how slow AEP was to restore power. First, crews were out of the state working on Gustav and Ike outages further south, and secondly, multiply the debris that you've seen in this video across a metropolitan area of 2 million people (yes, the Columbus metro area is that big!), you are bound to have thousands of problems that take time to fix.

I'm sure many people around still don't have power. Last evening, our local news reported that approximately 30,000 customers were still dark. Hopefully, the lights will come on for them soon as well.

Tom

16 comments:

  1. My answer to your question is that I use Photoshop CS3 to adjust colors, light and shadows a bit. Sometimes I overdo it, and have to start all over again. :-)

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  2. I think one of the best things from this storm is neighbors playing outside and visiting with each other! Fun!

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  3. It's amazing what Mother Nature can do when she gets a bee in her bonnet. She sure lets man know who is REALLY in charge here.

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  4. As a result, tree limbs fell on power lines all over central and southwestern Ohio, causing numerous power outages.

    You can add northeastern Ohio to the list. We got hit just as hard up here near CleveLand.

    Even though he was downgraded to a "tropical depression," that guy Ike still packed a wallop, didn't he?

    I was driving in my car around 5:00pm when the whole thing started up and had a huge Sycamore limb come crashing down 20 feet in front of me. Phew! Believe me, I was thanking my guardian angel for riding shotgun last Sunday.

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  5. Thanks Ivar- Your images remind me those that I take in Maine in November. It is interesting how autumn slowly creeps south.

    Yeah, it was. Fortunately, none of us were injured!

    Gretchen- Completely, yes, she does.

    Earthmother- I'm glad that someone was looking out for you. I found that sycamores and silver maples really did much damage in our neighborhood. The fast growing soft wood of these species was no match for Hurricane Ike!

    Tom

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  6. Wow....I'm thankful that it doesn't happen all the time. Glad you all have power and not much damage.

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  7. i like that video they look like they were having fun, and i am also glad that your all ok.

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  8. Tom: What a big path the storm took across Ohio and into PA. Our plant in Pa was without power until Friday, What a big wind for certain. Thanks for sharing your video of the winds.

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  9. Hmm...The 2nd image (under the data graphs,) comes up as a broken gif for me. I'm having problems loading the videos, too. I'll give it another shot when I get home.
    Your squirrels reminded me of our own after Gustav. We were sitting out on the deck, sweltering, trying to figure out what the semi-regular "plop" noises were. Eventually we realized it was a squirrel up in a tree, chewing acorns free & dropping them to the ground to pick up all at once. I guess he didn't consider the 2'+ of water everywhere...

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  10. Glad to see you have your power back and you all came through it safe. Watching the coverage of the storms back in rain sodden but basically safe UK was hair raising. I hope the people working to restore the power know that they are heroes, even if some people don't treat them that way.

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  11. Thanks Mary- Today the city service department cleaned up all the brush that we had piled up along the streets and it hardly looks like there ever was a storm.

    Lilli- Yes, they do look like they are having fun!

    Tom- You are welcome. This storm really packed a wallop.

    Lana- There is one graph and two videos under this post. I just checked, and they were working, but let me know if you can't see them. Interesting how squirrels behave sometimes, isn't it? This wind event seemed to be no big deal for them, at all.

    Bird- I completely agree. The line crews are still out and working around the city, and whenever I see them, they look exhausted. When finished with this job, they can rest assured that there work has been appreciated by the people of Columbus.

    Tom

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  12. I love the graphs! The barometric pressure drop is pretty impressive.

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  13. Kathleen-

    Yes! I'm glad that someone thought the graphs were cool too. It really is quite a drop. It was the lowest barometric pressure we experience since those big rain events back in June. You know, the one that brought four inches of rain?!

    Anyways, my sinuses went crazy just before the the windstorm. I popped some Sudafed it helped immensely, but it is amazing how our bodies can sense pressure changes.

    Tom

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  14. WOW! That's some storm! What a long time without power! Good thing no major house damage.

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  15. Looks pretty intense! Glad you and yours are safe and sound.

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  16. Chris- Yes, it was, although now it all seems like a dream. It is amazing how dependent we are on electricity.

    Thanks Corey- It was really crazy.

    Tom

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