Sunday, September 14, 2008

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.
 
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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,

 

 
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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

18 comments:

  1. Yikes! I'm so glad you're not hurt! Ike avoided Virginia, thank goodness, but oh my goodness I can't believe how destructive he was all the way up in Kentucky! We have Bradford pears too--they are in general bad "wind" trees.~~~XXOO, Beth

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  2. HI Amanda! WOW !!! what a horrific day!!! I'm glad to hear nobody was hurt, but your poor tree.... and, that's pretty funny about the trampoline (ONLY because nobody was hurt .... and that's a relief that those people whose pool it landed in were such good sports about it!)

    Hugs!!
    Mary Anne

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  3. I am so glad everyone is ok. I can kinda relate because this spring when all the flooding was going on I went home to Iowa and it was amazing helping everyone out. I remember sitting one day on my steps and the red cross was coming through town bringing lunch for us since we had no power, gas, no nothing just cleaning wet ick...but what a feeling it was that we were all ok.

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  4. Elizabeth: I didn't show you all pictures of the front of my house. It looks naked without my Bradford Pear; sort of creepy, too.

    Mary Anne: I gave the people hugs for being so sweet. I can't imagine being in the back yard and seeing a trampoline with a security net flying at me! lol

    Quilterpolly: I told my daughter yesterday that a lot of people have been inconvienced with tree removal, but when a tree hits your house or some other castrastophe such as a flood happens, it takes a long time to get back to normal. It will take a while for our landscape to be "normal" again, but that's nothing in comparison to what other people are going through in our area or in the other states.

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  5. Eileen in Ohio said it went through there like that too. I can't believe it! Its amazing the desctruction wind can do. Its good there was not more damage. Our prayers are with everyone touched by Ike. How terrible.

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  6. Very glad that you and your family survived IKE. Sad about your tree! I can't even imagine the face on the man who saw your trampoline come through and land in his pool! So glad you have wonderful neighbors to help bring laughter to sadness!

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  7. The winds came through here too but we lucked out with no damage or power outage at this house, however, our house near Barkley Lake was without power since Sunday a.m. and we're not sure if it yet restored. We have family near there who are looking after things on our behalf so we aren't down there ourselves. I saw on the news about the school closings and all the damage. The wind was so powerful on Sunday that I stayed inside. I'm glad it's over.

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  8. So glad you are unhurt but sad to see that your tree didn't survive. Isn't wonderful to see how folks all come together during times of difficulty . . . if only there was a way to bottle that up so we could have it each and every day *s* Stay safe.

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  9. so sorry to hear about your experience with Ike. those darn bradford pears are notorious for going down in storms. hope all is back to normal soon.

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  10. Amanda, wow that sounds scary, I am so glad you are o.k. and no damage to your home! Is the pear tree a total loss? I almost always have to edit my posts no matter how many times I proof read grrrrr.

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  11. Hi Amanda, Ike landed in Illinois too! We flooded! Sorry about your tree, Hugs, Mary

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  12. Oh, I'm so sorry about your beautiful tree and will keep your area in our prayers as well. I've never been near a tornado or a hurricane and can't even imagine how fearful I would be. I can, however, sympathize with the trampoline experience...ours flew down the road nearly a quarter mile one time in a windstorm and landed in our friends' front yard!

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  13. I feel very fortunate to have the neighbors that I do, and live in the neighborhood where I live. We all know each other, and we're all "here" for each other. I am the comic relief for the entire neighborhood as I am known to get my self into some stupid things, such as get my arm stuck in a car seat while it was buckled up (I was trapped and no one was home. I started screaming and people were running out of their houses in their pajamas!) or think something was wrong with my electricty when all I had to do was put in a new light bulb! lol
    You wouldn't want to be my next door neighbor!

    I was wondering about you, Connie. I'm glad that everything is fine where you are.

    Mary, I'm so sorry you had the flood part of the storm. They said there were two sides to this storm: one with wind and one with rain. We only got a few sprinkles. I hope everything is back to normal for you, soon.

    Tammy, the tree is a total loss. It's going to take a while for my landscape not to look so creepy. I will miss it for sure.

    I drove by the house tonight where my trampoline landed. It was propped up against their fence. I didn't realize it was so HUGE! My daughter and I went over and tried to roll it home, but that didn't work out to well. I guess people were looking out their windows and here they come again only this time helping us to carry a trampoline and all of it's many broken parts!

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  14. Amanda I am so sorry about your experience but so happy to know you and your family also mary and Mary's family saved.Lately we are also having some strong and stranger (for us) rain, storms with ice stones, wild winds who take out the roof of house and broken trees in south of Brazil.I only saw things like that in movies.We never had this before here and now I am afraid with the power of our Mother Nature when I watched on TV about hurricanes on there.Terrible scenes for us from here. Hope sincerely that everythings to be normal to all of you there. Warm Hugs Suely
    Suely

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  15. Absolutely - all the time! Usually because I need to reposiiton the pictures. Or fix my English because I'm thinking faster than I'm typing and I leave out a letter or two - or a word or two.

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  16. WOW that tree is unreal. And how sad that it was destroyed like that. Mother Nature sure was mad wasn't she? I'm glad you all are ok though.

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  17. So so sad to lose a tree. People forget the love and money invested in them.
    I had a lovely tulip tree....they take 14 yrs to flower.
    But alas I think the drought of the last two years has killed it and it is now going to cost to get rid of the dead tree. Mild when compared to Ike but losing any tree is painful. Happy planning for a replacement of some sort.

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  18. Oh my, I am so glad you and your family and your home are okay. What a shame about your tree. How lovely that the whole neighborhood worked together to help each other.
    Must admit I did laugh about the flying trampoline!! (only because I knew it ended okay)

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