Yikes!!! It's Ike!!!

Yes, that's right...Ike came to Kentucky for a visit. He was an unwelcome visitor, as I'm sure the people in South Texas and Louisiana will agree.

Weather reports stated that the remnants of Hurricane Ike would go through St. Louis, Indianapolis, and then eastward from there. Kentucky wasn't supposed to get a visit from Ike. They were wrong. A low pressure system came in from another direction causing the isobars to stay close together. This caused the 73 mph Hurricane winds unable to spread apart, and they went in all directions.

I have been through many storms; even tornadoes, but I have never seen anything like this. A tornado usually takes a path, but this wind storm swept the entire city causing trees to uproot and fall. Our city is under a state of emergency. Most people will be going without electricity for a week or so. Our's, fortunately came back on early this evening.

I know how afraid I was today. I can't imagine what it was like to live in Galveston and Houston. My upstairs was shaking so bad it felt like it was going to be swept away.

This tree, a Bradford Pear, has been standing in my front yard for the past 15 years.

 

People teased me and told me that I should call the newspaper because I had the tallest, largest Bradford Pear in town. Bradford Pears are dense trees with small trunks. Most of them don't do well in high winds. Mine, however, seemed to be unlike the rest, until today.

 

 

This is what it looked like when I opened my front door.

As I said before, I have never seen or experienced anything like this before. I have never seen winds blow so hard and so fierce. I was too afraid to go outside for fear something would hit me.

At one point, Julia and I looked out the window and saw our trampoline moving. We thought it caught on to a tree and would stay there, but a neighbor called and said the trampoline took flight and flew into another neighborhood,

 

 

into a person's yard, broke their fence, and landed in their pool!

How embarrassing!!!

The couple was so sweet and understanding. They got it out of the pool and placed sand bags around the edge of it to hold it down. At the time, he was looking outside and saw it flying. How funny is that!!! He saw it come over the fence and land in the pool. He asked his wife, "Honey, haven't you always wanted a trampoline?" She said, "No,why?" He said, "Well, now you have one!" They told me not to worry about it; there was really nothing I could do or could have done. You know there's just some things in life that are so totally out of your hands. This was definitely one of those times!

Later in the afternoon the winds had calmed down. I heard a chain saw humming and I looked out the window and saw that my neighbors were cutting the tree apart. All of the kids in my area of the neighborhood, as well as their parents, helped me get my tree out of the way. We then went around the neighborhood helping other people. I know this may sound strange, but we had so much fun. I think we were so happy that no homes or people were hurt. The smiles on people's faces when we would walk up and start cutting things away and clearing things out was such a great feeling.

The ironic part about all of us neighbors is that we had planned to have a neighborhood party that afternoon. Our party of grilling hamburgers and hot dogs turned into tree removal and debris pick up, but we had just as much fun. Yes, it would have been more fun to eat great food and not have to work so hard, but we did what we had to do for each other.

Our city continues to be in a State of Emergency. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don't have the tools necessary to clear away their trees and all the debris. It's such an overwhelming experience, to say the least.

When you pray for the people in Texas and Louisiana, please pray for Western Kentucky, too. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone, too.

Amanda