FRONT PAGES: The week Hurricane Ike knocked your power out (and ours, too)

Workers clean up downed tree limbs on Broadway Ave. in Tipp City in September 2008. Severe winds from Hurricane Ike caused heavy damage across the entire Miami Valley. JIM WITMER / STAFF

Workers clean up downed tree limbs on Broadway Ave. in Tipp City in September 2008. Severe winds from Hurricane Ike caused heavy damage across the entire Miami Valley. JIM WITMER / STAFF

With the tragic storms of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the 2017 season has been one of the most active in recent years.

But, for the most part, our region has been spared the more devastating, direct impacts of these storms.

We’re not always so lucky.

This week in 2008, a windstorm from Hurricane Ike hit the state.

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Six Ohioans died as a result of the windstorm. Counties south of Interstate 70 were hardest hit, with the worst damage around Cincinnati, Dayton and central Ohio.

“Ike wound up being more of a dry remnant of a hurricane as it moved in,” said Storm Center 7 Meteorologist McCall Vrydaghs. “We actually had sunny skies that day and warm temperatures. We got into the 80s, and then we had a cold front that pushed in and that forced a lot of instability and allowed some very strong upper level winds to get forced down to the ground in this dynamic setup.”

The storm knocked out power to 2 million customers... including some operations of the Dayton Daily News, Springfield News-Sun, Middletown Journal and Hamilton JournalNews (the last two papers later combined to form the Journal-News, one metro newspaper serving the residents of Butler County).

In fact, after the storm hit, the newspapers printed a combined version for days as operations returned to normal.

Here’s a look at the front pages after Ike clobbered the region:

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