We had wind gusts up to 75 mph from Ike Monday night. The storm took
out old standing oak trees, amongst others, as well as large sections
of large tree brances and trunks.

Our suburb, along with all surrounding suburbs, looked like war zones
the next morning with fallen trees over power lines, house and roads.
2 large trees took down 3 utility poles and power lines feeding our
(and many other) ever though our lines are underground. Needless to
say I was 10th in line at Costco Monday morning to purchase a portable
generator as we had no idea how long the power outage would last (and
we have suffered through too many in the past). Portable generators
could not be found through any source by noon that day.

Some 350,000 folks in Greater Cleveland lost power as well as hundreds
of thousands (perhaps over a million) in Columbus and across the rest
of the State. We lost power for 24 hours and were lucky to get it
restored so fast. Parts of the State (including parts of Clevleland
and Columbus) will not be restored till the weekend.

My neice living in Texas took the brunt of the storm (although she is
in middle Texas) and does not expect power to be restored to her house
till the end of the month.

As I said before in another thread the footprint of this hurricane was
tremendous. As a result it made a major hit across an entire State as
far north as Ohio.

Ike was one nasty storm!