Cleanup underway after Helene high winds hit Greater Cincinnati

Remnants of Hurricane Helene tore through Greater Cincinnati Friday afternoon and didn’t leave without a trace.

The rain and strong winds, which reached up to 100 km per hour in some areas, caused noticeable damage throughout the region. Many trees had fallen, in some cases causing power lines to fall.

A peak of about 125,000 households in Greater Cincinnati lost service Friday due to the severe weather. According to Duke Energy’s outage map, about 47,000 people are still without power as of Saturday afternoon.

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 cordoned off Herschel and Hardisty avenues in Mount Lookout just before 10:30 a.m.

Across the street, Simon Holland, 52, was working with his family to clear away large tree limbs that had fallen in the yard.

Holland said the neighborhood experienced “pretty intense winds” Friday afternoon, causing wires to fall in the road and tree limbs to hit his backyard playground, though his home was unscathed.

His family was without power overnight and crews had only just arrived Saturday morning to work on repairs, he said.

Cleanup efforts on Cincinnati’s east side continued well into the afternoon, where a crew used chainsaws to cut down a large fallen tree blocking the only entrance to an apartment complex on 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 Effler, 45, who compared the sound of Friday’s gusts to that of a freight train.

Effler said that while the winds were daunting, he and his family did not feel in immediate danger. But a few blocks away, on Meadowvista Court, a tree uprooted and landed on someone’s porch.

Helene follows the couple from South Carolina to the Glendale home

David Levin, 74, said his wife heard and felt something Friday afternoon that she mistook for a train on the tracks next to their 159-year-old home on South Troy Avenue in Glendale.

He said he was surprised when he came outside to find a large tree had fallen in his neighbor’s yard.

The couple lives on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, but returns to their home in the Cincinnati area twice a year to visit family and attend to medical needs, said Levin, who worked at Procter & Gamble for 34 years before joining retired in 2012.

This visit happened to coincide with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, he said.

Neighbors have been keeping an eye on Levins’ South Carolina home, he said, adding that there has been no property damage so far.

Levin said he has been monitoring news reports about the hurricane’s impact in the South.

“I was surprised by the number of deaths,” he said.

‘I didn’t think it would be this bad’

In Northern Kentucky, it took nearly 24 hours for residents of Florence just off Dixie Highway to see someone 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 messages to her and other residents saying that power would be restored that day by 3:30 p.m. That was moved to 6:30 p.m

Then Renaker said she didn’t hear from the power company until Saturday. There is still no estimate when she and others on Patricia Street will have electricity.

About five Bowlin Group LLC crane trucks were parked along the roadway near her home. Crews were clearing trees and moving replacement parts near downed wires.

“I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Renaker said of the storm, which left more than 1,000 Northern Kentuckians without power Saturday afternoon.

In the meantime, she, her husband and their 13-year-old son have been playing board games — Monopoly and Sorry — and dining out at IHOP and McAlister’s.

Her neighbor Marv Dryer, 52, lets them use his generator to charge their devices.

He bought it last night after the power went off at 6:30 PM and he hadn’t heard from Duke Energy.

It was the last one on the shelf at Sam’s Club.

He thought it was smarter to pay a few hundred dollars for a generator than to let a few hundred dollars’ worth of groceries spoil in his refrigerator.

“They’re bulls because they don’t update it,” he said of Duke Energy’s outage website. “And they don’t provide updates.”

High winds and rain affected Greater Cincinnati

Remnants of Hurricane Helene will move into the region on Friday and are expected to bring damaging winds and heavy rain.

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 connected to his generator.

But he and his adult son have been able to heat up coffee and tea and use their air fryer to make food.

Kevin Vogelpohl, deputy director of Boone County Emergency Management, said crews have been working since the storm to clear streets and restore power.

He said the area was lucky with no reports of flooding or displacement. He said there were some reports of trees on cars, but there were no injuries.