Early this evening, we had a severe thunderstorm in the Louisville area, including New Albany. It wasn't that bad here in my neighborhood; no damage to my roof, no trees or limbs down. I did lose power, for two and a half hours.
But apparently it was a lot worse south of me, in Louisville itself. There was widespread damage; power lines down as well as trees---100,000 people were without power this evening, and the power company in Louisville said it would be days before everyone had their power restored. Power lines came down across all lanes of I-64 in the eastern metro area (near Blakenbaker Parkway), closing the interstate both directions.
The airport recorded a gust of 58 mph, which is the threshold for a severe storm, but it was estimated that the wind reached 70 mph in Louisville. I think all I had was about 45 mph. I made this estimate based on the modern Beaufort Wind Scale: Whole trees were in motion, and twigs were broken off trees, but no branches were broken off trees that I could see. This indicates the wind was gale-force, 39-46 mph.