Gone with the wind

Hurricane Ike ripped through Indiana like a bat outta hell. That's right. You just read that correctly. A HURRICANE in INDIANA. Minus the rain and swells of flood waters, we had anywhere from 70 - 85 mph winds.

Our power went off immediately. The siding and trim on the house started pulling off. Shingles came off as well. We found some of our house stuff, who knows where the rest is. Toys and playground equipment started blowing away.

We did retreat to the basement during the wind storm. Since the house is an A-Frame and the entire front is windows, they were rattling and the wall was bowing in. That side of the house was taking the brunt of the storm. We were afraid the windows would shatter at any moment.

We didn't have any trees come down near the house. They're on the edges of the yard. There was a pretty big one that fell over the road to our house that Ryan and a neighbor had to clear away.

My parents are still without power. They were told they'd have it by the weekend. Hopefully sooner. They had nearly every tree in their yard break apart and thankfully not hit their home or garage. Ryan just left to go over and help with the clean up. Dad said he was outside watching everything and he's never seen anything (wind) like this. ever. Wicked, Wicked Wind. They're using a generator to keep their fridge going.

In town, nearly everyone sustained some sort of damage. Ryan called the insurance company about the roof and they said they'll be dealing with this for the next 6 months. Some were luckier than others. I called our contractor who's about to start work on our house. He was at a home in Tell City that had a large tree land on the roof and went through the top floor. They had to get a crane lift it off the house. Also in Tell City, the roof of the post office (all copper) peeled off and rolled up in a ball like a tin can. (see pic)

Perry County also had a casualty along with several injuries from people being outside and struck by trees.

I honestly don't see how people live in Hurricane regions. To have to deal with the wind, plus rain and floods. It's a triple threat. And to have to deal with it on a week by week basis. This is an unusual occurrence for Indiana, but the Gulf States and Coast get hammered every week it seems. I think it's worse than living in Tornado prone areas. At least with those, they can hit and miss areas.--They're selective on the destruction. The Hurricane wipes out entire towns and communities... and in our case here, gave the entire county wind damage to their properties. (Tornado's can do that too, but Hurricanes seem to be the varsity quarterback at it).

I won't be forgetting this for a long time.