I know that if you were at all aware of what was going on last night, you’re used to seeing pictures like this one. I took it from Mark Hebert’s car just before dark last night from Floyd Street, next to Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium. The photo doesn’t do justice to the eeriness of the scene, as what appeared to be a dozen utility poles were folded inward onto the street as we were facing south.
We had been playing golf in Indiana, and the weather grew weird on the drive back, about 8. Visibility was almost zero on the Sherman Minton Bridge. The clouds around us were in odd shapes, some like walls of darkness converging. The I-65 South ramp from 64 West was closed as we headed back to the U of L campus.
On the radio, there was WAVE-TV’s Kevin Harned, sounding as if he were racing back from vacation to the studio, where he would give play-by-play on the storm and its damage through the night in a shirt that looked like it came from the station’s promotional closet. Of course, he talked about the roof being blown off a Horse barn at Churchill Downs. Some reports mentioned that Horses might be running loose in the barn area.
We rode down Floyd, where police were trying to get a semi-truck turned around because it was facing south, right into the web of wires bisecting the road.
Later I saw John Asher explaining the situation at Churchill, and that racing would be called off today.
I’m still not sure what’s happening at my place in Jeffersont0wn. There was no sense in going there, as I saw Claudia Coffey reporting from a gas station two blocks from my home at 11, detailing the power outage and the wind damage affecting everything in the area.
I spent much of the night watching local stations report on the storm, and none are guilty, in this case, of over-hyping the event.
