IKE---Yike!

[Warbird]

Hey Greg, that's what my MIL reported in the NW corner of Arkansas.  Lots of wind, not much rain comparatively.  They have quite a few big trees down on their property and the FIL hit a tree in the road on the way home.  He was all right but others didn't fair as well.  They are out of power and don't know when it'll be back on.  The FIL has his generator going for emergency power and they are doing all right.  They have a creek near their house but the MIL said it is very muddy right now, due to the storm.

[Warbird]

Amazing story and pics of the aftermath of Ike: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_short_but_eventful_life_of.html

[dancan]

Warbird , thanks for finding and posting that link , great photos .

[Warbird]

They are very sobering.  :(

[sawguy21]

That is unbelievable.

[dancan]

They are very sobering.  :(

I was able to show the scale of damage to my daughters but I did have to find more stuff on Haiti , who (the country) is now in a very bad way and is left with next or less than nothing .

[Mr Mom]

Had power all day yeasterday untill about 7 pm then it went out and been on gen to keep things going. Will be on and off gen untill the lights come back on.
Does anybody know how many watts i need to run a whole house? Nothing fancy just might think of getting a whole house gen.


Thanks Alot Mr Mom.

[Rocky_J]

Depends on what you mean by 'whole house'. I just had an electrician put in a plug off of my main breaker box so I could plug in my little 6000 watt generator. It will run all the lights and outlets, but basically no 220 stuff. That means no stove, no water heater, no central AC, etc. But I can run all the lights and outlets no problem.

To run all the high power stuff like central AC, you'd have to know what size it is and the draw, then figure out how big of a generator you'd need. Probably 12000-14000 watt or more.

[Bro. Noble]

We lost power when Ike visited us Sat. night and still are in the dark :(  I'm using Dad's 3500 watt generator now to keep the fridge and freezer cool.  He says it is supposed to be enough to power his well and run electric baseboard heaters as long as they aren't turned on at the same time.

We have a 25000 watt generator at the milkbarn which powers several 1-3hp motors as well as the well,  water heater, milk cooler,  as well as the 110 stuff.

I would think a 10000 would work for a normal house.  I've seen ones that size used for dontractors and they look to me like a nice size.  You might find an 18000 watt pto generator at a bargain as they used to be common on dairies,  but are now too small for most operations.

If you hook a generator into your electric system (as opposed to plugging appliances into the generator) make sure you have a double pole double throw switch so that it's not possible to feed current back into the electric company's lines-----that would really pith them off.

I wouldn't mind if I never saw one of the stoopid things again.  I can get by fine without electricity except for keeping up with the forum and milking the stoopid cows ;D

[Texas Ranger]

I have a 15kw at the house, propane fired, that runs it all except central air, would need around 25kw for the whole thing.  It has been running since Saturday morning when Ike came to visit.  Costing about $100 per day, but having fans, ice, refrigerator, and tv (not to mention computer)  seems likes it worth it.

[Roxie]

 8)  It's sure good to see ya!  I was afraid Ike got ya!  Other than no power, what's it like in your area? 

[Faron]

Ike is going to have significant economic impact in the midwest. I had to make a parts run yesterday to Jasper, 15 miles or so east of here.  I saw many fields of corn partly to completely flat.  I spoke to the parts gal at my machinery dealer this morning.  She indicated we are the exception among their customers in not having serious problems with down corn.  They have already had over 70 orders or inquiries about reels for corn heads.  No way, I would think, that everyone who needs one is going to get one.  I also heard the nearby Deere dealer has about the same problem.  This will result in significant yield loss, as well as making for a slow and dangerous harvest.  A reel will probably cost from $1500 to $3000, if you could get one.  All I know to do if I need one is make one. :  I don't know just how big this area of damage is, but I think it is huge.

[Texas Ranger]

Roxie, don't know who you were asking, but our area was hit, but so far seems less than when Rita come through, and we were on the sloppy side.  Town is coming back to life, we have gas and groceries as well as some lights.  No deaths reported in our area, possible 30 or so for the state so far, that number continues to grow. 

Lots of timber damage, cattle damage, alligators on the prowl, snakes looking for high ground, you know, it's Texas.

[Grawulf]

I just got back from removing a tree from my son's house and patching the roof. They live in Mount Vernon, Ohio - about an hour and a half south of our house. They're still without power - had to ship in companies from South Carolina as many of our linemen are in Texas.
They're pretty much rewiring the whole community. Did I mention that I hate 12/12 pitches? 

[Bro. Noble]

Well,  the REA guys finally made an appearance yesterday evening about milk time.  They found a tree across the lines near our milkbarn.  I told them about two more.  One was real easy as it was a small pine just leaning against the lines and was where they could get their bucket truck right to it.  The other one was a different story.  There is a hill in front of my son's house called 'backbone ridge'.  That wasn't a name they just picked out of a hat-----that sucker goes almost straight up one sice and straight down the other.  There is a pole on the very top and it had a tree across the line near it.  The local lineman (he had three inports helping him) asked how in the heck did a guy get up there.  The pole is thought to be one of the originals from when electricity first came to our area in the mic 50's,  It was probably skidded up there by mule with another mule packing a bunch of dynamite to help dig the hole.  I suggested the route I would take and he just rolled his eyes and said they had better get started. It's about a half mile hike uphill through thick brush and timber.  This was about 5 PM.  We went ahead and milked with our generator and finished up about dark.  I told my wife that we had just as well forget about getting any power till tomorrow,  cause that line on backbone ridge would have to be taken care of first.  She woke me up about 2 AM this morning saying that we have power.  At the milkbarn this morning I told my son that I didn't see how they got the power on without getting that tree off the line on backbone ridge.  He said the hounds woke him up about midnight and he looked out to see what was going on.  He said there were flashlights flickering up on the ridge.  I've mentioned before that I've grown to really appreciate those guys.

[Faron]

Hey, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan folks.  Did this thing hit you very hard too?  I have never quite seen a storm like it.  Like Greg said, there was little or no rain with it.  Good thing, too.  Crop damage would have been much worse with a rain.

[Norm]

Faron it only hit the SE 1/3rd of the state. It was mostly just rain with no wind to speak of. We got 2.5"s of rain that was badly needed from a cold front that pushed through and kept Ike from our area.

[tcsmpsi]

Just a quick note from what's left of the woods, now that I have some power and phone/internet for a moment at least.

Ike caused much more damage than Rita, here.  Both the shop and the house/place suffered much more damage than Rita.  Power companies report twice as much damage.  But, they learned a lot from Rita, much better organized, many more workers...and we did not have the evacuee persons/problems which enhanced Rita exceedingly.

Had Rita not wiped out a significant amount of resources when she came through 3 yrs ago, the damage here would be...much worse.

I have tree off the house...wished I had left on, trees removed so we can get in and out.   Haven't gotten the one out of the millshed yet. 

Heard a small report coming out of Houston on the 14th, reporting county damage, and it mentioned Polk as "tremendous".

Retreived the missing shop roof from a neighbor's parking lot.

Have heard that Ike has caused damage as far up as Rochester, NY.

Might have a few pictures...if the camera held up in the wind.   :D

[Cedarman]

On a lighter note, the deer will be so fat from all the corn that will be on the ground this winter they will all have triplets.   The deer will be fat and tender this fall.  A lot of corn hit the ground.  At 5 bucks a bushel, there might be  lot  gleaning after the combines go through.

[tcsmpsi]

With the significant loss of pine cones and acorns, there's going to be some hungry critters around here.  What trees are still standing, most are pretty nekkid.





These pictures don't do ol' Ike much justice, as I seem to have been too dark on the strong gusts, and the action/sound is missing.





Once it slowed down a bit.





First trip to the shop Sat afternoon.





Found the wandering roof from the shop.

[OneWithWood]

tc,
Those first two pics could have been taken out our place Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning.  I have never seen trees in this area move so much 

Fortunately we did not have any structural damage or major tree fall, just lots of limbs.

Sorry to see you had such damage and glad you and yours came through without harm.  Good luck picking up the pieces.

[WDH]

DanG Micheal.  It looks like you got nailed pretty good.  That is some bad news about the shop roof.  Did all the contents get ruined?

How did the little yaupon family fare?  I heard that the damage in Livingston and south/southeast of there really got hammered. 

[Warbird]

Sorry to see you had such damage and glad you and yours came through without harm.  Good luck picking up the pieces.

Me too.  Glad you are all right!

[Mooseherder]

We had a lot of Pine Borers come in after our trees looked like that.  It took about a third of my Pines because they were weak.  I hope that doesn't happen to you.  Good luck with the recovery.  I get anxiety when I see this and had a gut feeling when Ike was out in the Atlantic that it was gonna be bad. :(

[mike_van]

Here's a link to CPN showing the power outage report for Texas - They still have a long way to go - http://www.centerpointenergy.com/staticfiles/ike/outages.html