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.

Thanks for the update. Glad to hear you and your mom is okay, and hopefully all the issues get restored soon.

Hopefully soon, everything is back to normal.

Jim, I was born and raised in Owensboro, down the river from you. I live in the Florida panhandle and warned my folks in KY that Ike was going to give them more hell than us here. Sure nuff did, although y'all didn't get the needed rain. Strange world we live in, don't you know.

Best wishes to those poor souls in southeastern Texas.

I considered using a Dogfather for chopping, but I also had an H.I. Chiruwa AK I'd bought used but never used. I was surprised by how well that khukri cut -- it was much better than any hatchet I've owned, I suppose because it had weigh to carry it through, with a thinner blade profile than a hatchet, but faster blade speed. I had to consider what would happen if the blade carried through (and adjust my body placement accordingly) because it went through some branches in a single swing.

The only bad part is that in addition to chopping larger branches, I cut a mulberry sapling near ground level and hit a buried rock. That hit folded over the tip -- I think I'm going to have to tap that back into shape with a hammer. I don't like to damage any of my knives, but least I didn't ding a DF on that rock. An SR-77/Res-C Khukri might sing to me after all.

Yep, it's still dry as a bone out there. Some local communities are running out of water because their pumping stations don't have power and they've sent their emergency generators to Texas. The power companies have recalled personnel dispatched to help out in hurricane recovery due to the damage up here. They've certainly got more recovery work than people to do it right now. One of my Mom's neighbors said that his insurance company offered him $20/hr to clean the debris from his own property.

I hope things improve soon, Jim. Hang in there.

Looks like aside from a slightly windy day this past weekend, we missed all the fun. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crossfingers.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

We could'a used some rain too though...

Hang in there indeed... We were out of power for a week last year due to a big wind storm of 90 mph winds, I had a 110 ft tree thru my boat and a weeks worth of mess to clean up. Thank god for three chainsaws and a Kubota!
Glad to hear you made it thru!

Sorry to hear of the problems Jim. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> For some lights you might get a power inverter and 12 volt battery - just plug in a couple of lamps or string of white/clear Christmas lights. You can also watch a small television for news in your area. A little light can make a bad time a little better; this is what I do whenever we have severe weather in our area. When we had a bad ice storm last December, we were quite comfortable thanks to my preparations. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Jim,

That's a bummer. This is the third post on three different message boards that I've read concerning high winds in your area.

Here in Florida the wife and I are pretty prepared for natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires. When TS Fay came rolling through I was well prepared and I didn't have to do squat to get ready since we already were. So when folks were lining up at gas stations and headed to the grocery store to get water and bread I went fishing. It was great.

You never know when something will happen. Sometimes it's best to prepare in advance for the unknown. I hope everything works out and you get electricity restored.

during an outage, it's candles and the acoustic guitar to pass the time for me. when we had that northeast power failure, i ate out after the power was restored since my fridge was dead for days. that ended up bein a bad idea.

I can certainly sympathize about having a car smashed by tree limbs in bad weather, my parents had a caprice classic that got the whole roof caved in by a limb from a gust of wind. Luckily we had come in from outside only moments before (we were outside playing frisbee cause the wind made it jump up and down when you threw it) and no one was hurt. Glad to hear no one was hurt on your end.