Winds exceeding 60 mph stripped bark from trees, power lines from poles and cars from streets Saturday afternoon in Greater Cincinnati.

        The area wasn't alone. The powerful gusts caused damage throughout most of Indiana and Ohio and toppled a tree in Lorain, near Cleveland, killing a man who was crushed underneath.

        But the strong winds calmed considerably nearly as quickly as they came. By nightfall, the only evidence of problems was darkened neighborhoods across the Tristate.

        “We have 5,000 customers without power,” Cinergy spokesman Dave Woodburn said late Saturday night, adding that all customers should have their power back sometime today.

        Rain that began in the morning started falling in horizontal sheets as a strong cold front moved in from the west. At the peak of the storm — around noon — about 63,000 Cinergy customers were without power.

        Mr. Woodburn said100 electric and tree crews were working Saturday night.

        Many of the problems were at individual residences, but interruptions also affected neighborhoods and business districts from Clermont County to Price Hill to Northern Kentucky.

        Runways were shut down for about 10 minutes at the Greater Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport, causing minimal delays, and the airport lost power to some outside gates, said spokesman Ted Bushelman.

        Police and fire crews in Cincinnati kept busy responding to uprooted trees, downed power lines and minor wrecks. Police said calls for service were about double that of a typical Saturday, but they reported no major damage.

        “We really took a beating,” Hamilton County dispatcher Tori Britton said. “It was nuts.”

        She said calls came in by the hundreds — many on 911 emergency lines — from residents wanting to know when power would be restored.

        “We processed 1,100 details since 2 o'clock,” she said. “A lot of it was on the west side of town, in Colerain (Township).”

        By late Saturday, emergency dispatchers from Butler County to Covington said most of the cleanup was over.

        Elsewhere in Ohio, though, the storms leveled a mobile home in Pleasant View in Fayette County. No one was seriously injured.

        In Lorain, firefighters used chain saws to get a 41-year-old man out from under a tree that fell on him in a residential neighborhood. He was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

        Winds of 85 mph were recorded in the Columbus suburb of Grove City, and area roads were closed for the removal of downed power lines.

        The Fairgrounds Coliseum in Columbus temporarily lost power Saturday night, delaying the start of a boys high school basketball playoff game by about two hours.

        In Canton, Interstate 77 was closed briefly after overhead highway signs fell to the road because of the wind, police said.

        Locally, National Weather Service forecaster John Center said the highest winds were recorded at Wilmington (61 mph) and Dayton, Ohio, (58 mph) and Covington (56).

        The front chased out the Tristate's brief spell of warm temperatures. Saturday's high of 63 will be followed by a high today of 40.
       Email ranglen@enquirer.com
       

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