The remains of hurricane Ike passed just west and north of western Kentucky this morning. At 7:10am the power at my home went off. After a couple of hours the power came back on for a few minutes and went out again. Four hours later the power came for good.
I had to respond to a power outage downtown and check on my wife's store. The roof of her store has a rubber roof on it. The rubber roof was being so inflated it almost looked like a balloon. I thought the high winds were getting between the rubber and the roof through a big hole somewhere so I got up there to check it out. I took a roll of duck tape with me. I did not find a big hole but did try to foolishly apply some duck tape in a few places. The duck tape wouldn't stick to the rubber.
The Paducah area literally looks like a tornado went through town. Signs are laying on the ground everywhere. Trash cans are laying on their sides a block away. Big and small trees are down everywhere. My neighbor tells me that a house down the street is a total loss after a large tree up rooted. His neighbor had a large limb fall through his bedroom. That limb went completely through the house and stopped when it in the ground under his bedroom floor.
This part of the midwest may get some tornadoes from time to time but we certainly aren't used to the persistent winds like we saw this morning. Anything that wasn't battened down got blown away and any trees that weren't in good shape got blown over.
