It was 10 years ago this week that Hurricane Ike would make landfall and become one of the costliest storms to hit the United States. At the time the storm was the 2nd most costly storm to make landfall in the US, but would be passed by about a handful of storms since.
The storm formed as a tropical depression at the start of the month of September and quickly became a tropical storm. The storm would become a hurricane on September 3rd, and incredibly, 6 hours after becoming a hurricane, it reached Major Hurricane strength.
6 hours after becoming a Major Hurricane, it would hit its peak winds at 145mph as it pushed northwest. The storms would continue to navigate through the Caribbean and do major damage to Cuba, before entering the warm Gulf waters.
The storm would get stronger and become a cat 2 storm across the Gulf, before making landfall a couple days later along the Texas coast. Officially landfall was at 2:10am local time (3:10am Columbus time) at Galveston Texas on September 13th.
It would not take long after that for Ike to make a turn to the northeast, and race towards Ohio. As the storm weakened, the forward speed of the storm really increased.
The storm would be moving northwest at 10mph at landfall, but when it reached up near Texarkana later in the day, it would be moving northeast at 20-30 miles per hour, and keep on that quick clip, even as the winds within the storm slowed down.
Ike in Ohio
Ike was no longer a hurricane as its winds battered Ohio. However, there were several official winds reported at 75 miles per hour, or hurricane force including in Columbus. It is estimated that Ike did more than 1 billion dollars damage in the Buckeye state, and was the costliest storm since the Xenia tornado in 1974.
In Ohio, more than 2.5 million people lost power due to winds associated with Ike, and sadly 7 people lost their lives due to storm-related deaths.
Most of the area saw little to no rainfall from the storm itself, but only wind. There were a couple of tornadoes associated with the storm to the north in Michigan.
Below is a storm summary of the damage & storm reports from 9/14/08 in Central Ohio from the National Weather Service in Wilmington, Ohio.
If you have stories to share about your experience with Ike, or have pictures you would like to share, I always welcome them, email me, dmazza@wcmh.com
-Dave
