We just survived the worst wind storm in our county's history! The wind blew continously starting in the 20-30 mph range (32 - 48 kph) on Sunday evening. Late Sunday/early Monday morning the wind picked up considerably and blew hard for the next 24 hours. We came through it just fine - we only lost our electricity. Thankfully, we have wood heat so even though there was no fan to distribute the warmth, the living/dining room and bedroom were kept in the 70's.
Our house is in the middle of the city, literally one block from our electric company and we were without power for 48 hours. That is an indication of how bad the damage was - after the local hospital, we are
always the first ones to get our electricity back. At the worst, 90% of the entire county was without power. Wind gusts at the local airport were registered as high as 81 mph (129 kph). Quite a bit of the county is still currently without electricity.
One of the rural roads had an estimated 500 - 700 trees down. Trees all around the city were snapped or uprooted. A large number of homes had at least a few shingles missing from their roofs. One of the buildings in the industrial area of town lost its entire roof - all that remained were the joists. Signs were missing from Home Depot, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Dairy Queen, a local tavern and many others.
Below are some photos of the damage but these are the least damaged areas. Clicking on a photo will show you a larger image.
The sign at Radio Shack leans precariously.
The stop lights are dark and the wreath on the pole should be 90° from where it is.
If you look to the right of the power pole, you can see the alder trees that snapped.
Our next door neighbors' plum tree was uprooted.
Holly anyone? This holly tree was uprooted and managed to fall the only direction that it could without causing any damage.
The tree on the right, snapped and fell between the houses. The one on the left uprooted and seems to be held up by the house (it was impossible to see what damage the house sustained).
Another tree that came partially down.
