My part of the country (southern Indiana northern Kentucky) had strong winds come through Sunday morning. I think it was the remnants of Ike heading north. We've also had almost no rain for months, so the trees were very brittle -- I think you see where this is going -- trees split and shattered.

As far as damage to my property, I got through pretty well, but a couple miles down the road at my Mom's house, three large limbs crumpled her car's trunk, busted out the back window and dented the top; another limb speared into her windshield. She's got some shingle and gutter damage, and 12-inch diameter limbs are hung up on the power lines behind her house; a couple lines snapped, the rest are stretched by all that weight. So far, neither she nor I have seen any power company work crews -- They're out there, but they haven't made it to our neighborhoods yet. I was still without power at lunch -- when I got back, somebody mentioned they just try to call home; if they get their answering machine, they have power, if not, they don't.

I chopped limbs at Mom's house most of Sunday, then took yesterday off to drive her to insurance agents, limp her car into a body work shop, and we went on a quest for ice (by now, all the food in either of our fridges has to be considered gone, but there was hope of salvaging it yesterday). I let her have my cell phone until her phone comes back -- she has a corded phone (as do I), but apparently when she switched her phone service to the cable company, the corded phone only works as long as a UPS box beside her computer holds out, which is only a few hours. I came in to work today, which is the first time I've had access to news or the Internet in a couple days. Just sitting in the dark once the sun goes down isn't much fun; hopefully, they'll restore power to my area soon.