Remnants of Hurricane Helene ripped through Greater Cincinnati Friday afternoon, and they didn't leave without making a mark.
The rain and high winds, which in some areas reached as high as 60 mph , caused noticeable amount of damage throughout the region. Many trees had fallen over, bringing down power lines along with them in some instances.
A peak of approximately 125,000 households in Greater Cincinnati lost power Friday due to the severe weather. As of Saturday afternoon, roughly 47,000 still remain without power , according to the Duke Energy outage map.
More: Helene’s winds hit Ohio, just like Hurricane Ike did in 2008. Here's what happened then
'Pretty intense'
Duke Energy and Spectrum crews had taped off Herschel and Hardisty avenues in Mount Lookout just before 10:30 a.m.
Right across the street, Simon Holland, 52, was working with his family to clean up sizable tree branches that had fallen in the yard.
Holland said the neighborhood experienced “pretty intense wind” Friday afternoon resulting in wires falling in the road and tree limbs hitting the playground in his backyard, though his house was unscathed.
His family was without power overnight and crews had only just arrived Saturday morning to work on repairs, he said.
Cleanup efforts continued well into the afternoon on Cincinnati's east side, where a crew used chainsaws to cut down a large fallen tree blocking the only entrance to an apartment complex off Erie Avenue in Madisonville.
Miles away in College Hill, resident Ben Effler spent Saturday morning and early afternoon raking branches in his front yard.
“It was pretty intense,” said the 45-year-old Effler, who likened the sound of Friday’s wind gusts to that of a freight train.
Effler said that while the wind was daunting, he and his family didn’t feel in imminent danger. Just a few streets over on Meadowvista Court, however, a tree uprooted and landed on someone’s front porch.
Helene follows South Carolina couple to Glendale home
David Levin, 74, said his wife heard and felt something Friday afternoon that she mistook for a train on the tracks adjacent to their 159-year-old South Troy Avenue home in Glendale.
He said he was surprised to come out and find that a large tree had fallen into his neighbor’s yard.
The couple live in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, but return to their Cincinnati-area home twice a year to visit family and attend to medical needs, said Levin, who worked 34 years with Procter & Gamble before retiring in 2012.
This visit just happened to coincide with Hurricane Helene’s arrival, he said.
Neighbors have been watching the Levins’ house in South Carolina, he said, adding that so far, there’s been no property damage.
Levin said he has been keeping an eye on news reports about the hurricane’s impact down south.
“I was surprised at the number of deaths,” he said.
'I did not think it would be this bad'
Over in Northern Kentucky, it was almost 24 hours before Florence residents just off Dixie Highway saw anyone from the electric company on their street.
Tiffany Renaker, 37, said she and her family lost power around 11:30 a.m. Friday. Duke Energy sent her and other residents messages that power would be restored by 3:30 p.m. that day. That was pushed back to 6:30 p.m.
Then, Renaker said she didn't hear from the power company until Saturday. There's still no estimate for when she and others on Patricia Street will have electricity.
About five crane trucks from Bowlin Group LLC were parked along the roadway near her house. Crews were cutting down trees and handling replacement parts near downed wires.
"I did not think it would be this bad," Renaker said about the storm, which left over 1,000 Northern Kentuckians without power as of early Saturday afternoon.
In the meantime, she, her husband and their 13-year-old son have been playing board games – Monopoly and Sorry – and going out to eat at IHOP and McAlister's.
Her neighbor Marv Dryer, 52, has been letting them use his generator to charge their devices.
He bought it last night after the power didn't come back on at 6:30 p.m. and he hadn't heard from Duke Energy.
It was the last one on the shelf at Sam's Club.
He figured paying a few hundred dollars for a generator was smarter than letting a few hundred dollars worth of groceries go bad in his refrigerator.
"It's bulls— because they don't update it," he said about the Duke Energy outage website. "And they don't give any updates."
Bryer, who uses a wheelchair, said he hasn't been able to sleep because he can't turn on his medical bed. It's "flat as a pancake" because he can't plug it in with his refrigerator and a light plugged into his generator.
But he and his adult son have been able to heat up coffee, tea and use their air fryer to make food.
Kevin Vogelpohl, deputy director of Boone County Emergency Management, said crews have been working to clear streets and get power restored since the storm hit.
He said the area was lucky – no reports of flooding or displaced people. He said there were a few reports of trees on cars, but no injuries.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cleanup underway after Helene remnants pummel Cincinnati area; many still without power
Local News
