The Observation Deck

Hi everybody.

Jim O. called from some crazy mission for photos-- he's over by Edgewater-- saying he's seen power lines down everywhere, trees down and small fires. He says he's never seen so many power lines down. He wanted it posted right away that people should stay inside and if you have to go out, watch out for the power lines, and fallen trees.

Watching low clouds zip around in all directions. Clifton is a bit flooded, saw a friend post pictures on facebook. If you don't have to go outside, don't! Will post photos tonight..

Just returned from driving around with Jim and Deb.. it looks rough north of Clifton. We took a ton of photos, but we will see everything tomorrow during the day.

North of Clifton, the streets were covered in this gunk.. grass, leaves, debris. It covered all the cars and houses too. As soon as you cross Clifton heading south, no traces of any damage.

Lots of dodging wires and branches in the streets, it was pitch black through Lakewood and a lot of streets were flooded due to backed up sewers. Nicholson was hit hard, and several other back streets north of Clifton and Edgewater were hit pretty severely.







During the first gust of wind and hail, from my second story window.

We counted at least 20 large trees down.

Nearly all of the damage is north of Clifton, Rocky River' Frazier and Avalon Drive got hit bad
and it would seem to follow the edge of the coast line. Heavy damage on Lake, and Eddgewater.

Trees into home, but most fell only on wires like this one on West Clifton and Clifton, that kept
flaring up.





Deep water everywhere, here a policeman crosses Clifton.







If you were south of Clifton you got rain and hail.

On Edgewater you saw this...







At 1:37am the police scanner is still hoping with trees falling over.

More tomorrow.

.

Near Riverside, there was hail as big as quarters. They were saucer shaped and very dense.

Ah hail! This is going to be a bad one.

Just posted 60+ images more coming...




Close calls with trees!

Photos of day 2


Next day Councilman Mike Summer goes out to survey the damage in his Ward.


Clifton Beach damage!

Here
http://lakewoodobserver.com/photoblogs/jim-obryan/storm-05082010




.

Wind takes trees.

Sorry guys....I took pictures but you all have already posted most of them...our power was out for over 25 hours...the storm was a woppper!!

Thank goodness everyone was alright!

Wow. Those are some awful pictures. I am so glad no one was hurt and I have to commend the police, the fire department, and the utility companies for working so quickly. Our power was only out for about 15 hours which is pretty darn good considering all the damage in the area. Driving around yesterday I was impressed by how quickly the clean up is going. We were out trying to move a large branch out of the street because there were live wires on the other side and immediately had plenty of help. It's great to see communities come together when stuff like this happens. And once again, yeah it was bad but it could have been so much worse. Lakewood will cleanup and will be as good as new.

Here's my house:




Here's my car:



.

I just added 40 more photos of Day 3 The Clean Up to my Storm Photo Blog at
http://lakewoodobserver.com/photoblogs












After a tough weekend, it was great seeing neighbors out helping each other return the calm
of Lakewood.

Why would anyone live anywhere else?

.

Less big trees?

That's a tough break, Stephen. Glad you are OK.

Don't get me wrong, I love trees....but....

We got rid of the big old trees in our yard a few years ago.

There's a clay base just a few inches under much of Lakewood's topsoil. Many of our big trees' roots are therefore very shallow. Add to that, the fact that many old Lakewood trees are now either hollowed out, or have been damaged in one way or the other by the ravages of time.

It's expensive to take out a big tree, but if you have it fall into your home...

Might not be a bad thing to have your big trees evaluated by a professional.

Back to the banjo...(a fine recycled use for a tree, I might add...)

No storm last night but the power went off here at the Westerly for about 2 hours. I opened my door and there were no emergency lights on in the hall, that''s an issue.

There were some neighbors going up and down the hall making sure our more fragile residents were okay. They fixed the hall lights, but they''re going to have make sure that doesn't happen again.

I wonder what it was that made the power go out here.

sharon kinsella wrote:I wonder what it was that made the power go out here.

The power was out from spots in Lakewood all the way over to Bay Village. Faulty First Energy system I believe, since the storm shook the area up pretty good.