Whew, the winds this weekend made it seem as if Ohio was hit by a hurricane. Oh wait.
Wind speeds in central Ohio hit 75 mph (~120km/h), nearly as fast as a moderate tornado.
Power was knocked out on Sunday. Calling AEP, if you were lucky, might have gotten you an automated outage reporting system if you didn’t get the “line busy” tone first, with estimates of seven days until power could be restored. Luckily for us, it came back on this morning after two days.
What was strange? There was no lightning, no thunder, hail, or rain, just heavy wind. No tornadoes were reported, yet the wind speed was already there. Almost every street was blocked off by trees, and as of right now, 30% of traffic lights in Ohio are non-functional.
I was going to take some pictures during the storm, but after being whipped in the face with leaves and stray tree branches I decided it was better to wait.
The damage here was minimal compared to other places. Cars were crushed, schools were shut down, and a 5-house fire was started in town from a downed power line.
Who else got hit?
I live in Ohio too. Almost all of the schools near me were closed, and they had their first “hurricane day.” The power was off and on about 20 times the night of the storm, but it fortunately ended up staying on all night. I know some people that aren’t supposed to get power until Sunday, some of whom live right down the street from someone who hasn’t lost power. Weird.