Feeling Ike's wrath: Wind pounds area

By BILL RICHMOND

City editor

CYNTHIA AUKERMAN,

News-Gazette reporter

Local officials say damage caused by the remnants of Hurricane Ike which passed through Randolph County Sunday afternoon was widespread, but not as severe as in some nearby areas.

County Sheriff Jay Harris said an uptown Farmland business had its roof blown off Sunday evening just before 5 p.m. Randolph County Emergency Management Director Rick Brown said three families were relocated from the Farmland business block.

Harris said there were eight situations where trees fell across roadways in the county and some stop signs were blown down. He said county highway workers were out clearing roads until about 11:30 p.m. Sunday.

"It is my understanding that some Wayne County REMC electric customers were without electricity from about 3 to about 10:30 p.m.," he said.

County building superintendent Matt Girton said the wind blew some shingles off the roof and damaged a barn roof at former county home.

"Overall the wind damage to county buildings was not too bad," Girton said.

Winchester Mayor Steve Croyle said a few city streets and alleys were blocked by fallen trees but emergency personnel and city street crews were on top of things and had the situations cleared up in good time.

"They did an outstanding job," Croyle said of city workers responding to the emergency situations.

In Union City, Ind., the wind blew 10 sheets of plywood off the roof of a house at the corner of Royal and Howard streets. Firefighters and emergency personnel slipped the boards back, nailed them down and covered portions of the roof.

UCI Fire Chief Tim Crawford said, "We never had to do anything like that before. But the family wasn't at home, and we wanted to help protect the house."

On both sides of the line, emergency personnel responded to multiple reports of utility wires down.

On the Ohio side, there were several cases of trees coming down on houses and fences. Firefighters helped clear the trees for people who didn't have any means of doing the work themselves.

Both fire departments had up to 15 people working the calls during the height of the storm.

But the damage could have been much worse. Mark Wright, of the Union City, Ohio Fire Department, said the damage appeared to be worse in Greenville and south of there. With all of the activity, there were no injuries reported in the area.

Crawford said, "Thank goodness there weren't any fires."