Timber!

Sunday we were hit with the remnants of Ike. We only received a sprinkling of rain, but winds were strong enough to blow down many tree limbs. I'm not sure how high the wind registered here, but in parts of Cincinnati it was up to 86 mph. As you can see, our front (and only) tree is now gone. We had gone to church just before 1 pm with the wind blustering, but not too serious. Not too long after Sacrament Meeting and in the middle of Primary opening exercises, the power cut out. There were plenty of windows to keep primary going, but the poor nursery kids, who meet in the cultural hall, were in pitch black darkness. I'm sure the nursery leaders wanted to cry themselves after gathering everyone/everything up to move to different room. Church continued till the end despite the dimness and lack of air-conditioning.
Driving home was a rather eerie sight. We passed small limbs and debris on the roads; half of the stop lights were out. Some people were out of their homes either trying to stay cool or assessing the damage. When we pulled into our neighborhood, however, the real damage became more apparent. There was a lot more debris and whole trees were toppled. People were pulling limbs out of the road. On the street before ours, there was a whole crew of people working to clear limbs. As we turned the corner to our home we could see that half of our tree had fallen onto the neighbors garage, and their tree had also lost a huge branch. We weren't sure that we would keep this tree, but to see it gone was quite a shock.
After changing out of our church clothes, we went out front to figure out the next step. As we were deciding, a neighbor down the street pulled up in his pick-up truck and asked if he could help. He'd already used his chainsaw on 4 downed trees in the neighborhood. Within minutes there was a small crew of neighbors pulling over branches and making piles.
After taking care of the fallen limbs, we decided to take down the rest of our tree since it was badly leaning toward the house. We will now have plenty of firewood for next year, but it will be plenty of work to chop it up and stack it.
The power stayed out until about 6am this morning. We made our dinner on the Camp Chef last night in the garage--pork tenderloin, quinoa, and stewed green beans (no one can ever doubt that we eat just as well camping as when we are at home:)). We were grateful to still have running water in the pipes and no running water in the basement. With rain and no power for the sump pump, we could have been in trouble. We are even more grateful to our wonderful neighbors who just showed up to help.
As an emergency situation, I know others have been through a lot, lot worse, and I'm grateful that this was small event. I think it helped us see where we need to improve our emergency prep--there are definitely a lot of holes to fill!

Half of the front tree leaning on the neighbor's garage.
Our neighbor's tree.
Close-up of the tree split.

Half of the piled up branches.