Day Three of Darkness in Louisville

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

*****

When I was a kid, my grandmother regularly made references to the ’37 Flood as if it had happened last Thursday. Thirty plus years afterward, the flood was a regular talking point in her conversations about Mother Nature.

Anyone my age or older will recall where they were April 3, 1974, when the tornado passed through Louisville (and most of Kentucky, the South, and the Midwest), tearing up trees and houses and leaving a mile wide path of devastation in its wake.

On a more whimsical but nonetheless destructive note, folks living in Old Louisville, Park Hill, and the U of L area will recall the morning of February 13, 1981 when Louisville’s sewer system in that area literally blew up creating traffic jams for several months as streets and sewers were rebuilt for a fairly large section of town. “Where were you when the sewers blew?”

Now, for the next generation, Sunday, September 14, 2008 will have a place of significance in Louisville weather-lore, the day when what was left of a hurricane blew through in a big way.

The remnants of Hurricane Ike began its passage through Louisville shortly after church let out around 12 noon. By 1:30 pm , strong winds were constant and most folks began losing electricity. Unlike the tornado which comes and goes in a manner of minutes and tends to follow a reasonably narrow path of maybe a mile wide, the winds from Ike did not let up at all for nearly four hours, gusting at times to 75 miles per hour, and covering everything between Lexington west to Saint Louis, about 325 miles wide. The howling of the wind made for some interesting noises. There was no lightning or rain as was predicted, just wind. With the winds, both trees and power lines came down, along with stoplights, signs, roofs, and all the flotsam and jetsam that seems to accumulate along the sides of roads and highways in the curbs and ditches. Many homes all across the region have uprooted trees and in many cases open roofs where the trees landed. It is estimated that at one point about 80% of the customer base of the Louisville Gas and Electric Company were without power. That was Sunday. Most still have none today and we’ve all be told that it may take a week for full restoration. The schools are closed in a seven-county area and many are closed until next week; several businesses are shuttered, and the sound of chain saws is beginning to permeate the air, although the local Home Depots and others are now reporting they are out of chain and generators. From the reports in the paper and on the internet, it seems that no part of town, or for that matter anywhere in Kentucky and Indiana, was spared.

Monday I drove out to my mother’s where my chainsaw (and clippers and trimmers) happened to be. I would have needed my tools to go to my dad’s where his one tree, a not very tall tree which has been beat up in previous storms, was mostly in his and his neighbor’s front yards. But, before I could do that, his neighbors, who also lost trees, took care of him. I'll forgive them their Northup for Congress yardsign for the moment. They are very good neighbors to my father. I spent most of the day with him as he was concerned about using his oxygen tanks without the aid of electricity. He has a backup tank which he is now using. When I drove in today, I went through his neighborhood which is still without power.

So, the clean up has begun, or at least makes pretensions of beginning. Until power is restored, very little clean up can take place other than gas powered saws, or saws using power generated from gas powered generators.

But, the sun came up again Monday, as it tends to do on the mornings after, as it did on Tuesday, and again today. And if the power is still out tonight, as it promises to be, there are sparkling stars and a bright, full moon hovering in the sky giving light where otherwise there is none.

While an argument could be made that the city and our foreign owned utility company aren't providing, the Lord does, as the words of Genesis above tell us.