Our forecast for last Sunday was "chance of scattered showers late in the day." When we left church the wind was overwhelming. We (meaning an area of the midwest probably as large as is affected by some hurricanes) ended up with 6-8 hours of 75-80mph winds, depending on where one lives. We are 45 miles NE of Cincinnati. No forecast, no warning. We are without power since Sunday. No major damage personally, other than lots of debris and loss of business, but I understand Louisville, Indianapolis, Lexington, Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and some points into PA were affected to varying degrees. At one point the Duke Energy system in SW OH had 900,000 customers w/o power.....and that's just our corner of the state. I have seen massive damage with the little driving I have done looking for ice and gasoline.
I have not seen anyone from FEMA or the Red Cross, nor have I even heard anything on the national news (though I admit, our ability to get other than local news is limited....we have a battery operated AM radio), and I'm telling you this is huge. Best I understand the warm moist front in front of Ike hit a cold air mass moving south in the Ohio River valley, coupled with a lower than normal (in elevation) jet stream....local meteorologists have called it anything from a 500 year event to something not likely to ever be repeated.
Can't say I really want anything from the dotgov anyway, but it was tough for a few days here for a lot of folks as most gas stations couldn't pump and many, maybe most stores couldn't sell....nor restaurants. We found ice on Tuesday, as well as gas, and on Monday we were able to take our important stuff from the freezer to a friend 20 miles away who still had power. Still off the grid, getting my first online time since Sunday. And again, this was literally out of the blue, which is a big part of what has made it tough. This AM I heard Duke (which is primarily SW OH) still has 135,000 customers down, and DP&L (Dayton and surrounding area) had 67,000 down. Any other time those numbers alone would be a local disaster.
I have not seen anyone from FEMA or the Red Cross, nor have I even heard anything on the national news (though I admit, our ability to get other than local news is limited....we have a battery operated AM radio), and I'm telling you this is huge. Best I understand the warm moist front in front of Ike hit a cold air mass moving south in the Ohio River valley, coupled with a lower than normal (in elevation) jet stream....local meteorologists have called it anything from a 500 year event to something not likely to ever be repeated.
Can't say I really want anything from the dotgov anyway, but it was tough for a few days here for a lot of folks as most gas stations couldn't pump and many, maybe most stores couldn't sell....nor restaurants. We found ice on Tuesday, as well as gas, and on Monday we were able to take our important stuff from the freezer to a friend 20 miles away who still had power. Still off the grid, getting my first online time since Sunday. And again, this was literally out of the blue, which is a big part of what has made it tough. This AM I heard Duke (which is primarily SW OH) still has 135,000 customers down, and DP&L (Dayton and surrounding area) had 67,000 down. Any other time those numbers alone would be a local disaster.
It is a moderately exclusive community of mostly older very large homes. Of course there are some exceptions, but overall it is considered upper crust and the school district is very good. We are probably around 20 miles by road, 12-14 as the crow flies, from Montgomery. Most of Montgomery has a fair amount of large trees, so I suspect they took as much damage as our rural areas. 
