Power outages to the barn area and the Kentucky Derby Museum are about the only effects Churchill Downs felt from the Sept. 14 windstorm created by the remnants of Hurricane Ike.
Churchill vice president of racing communications John Asher said training was never interrupted by the effects of the storm, which caused significant but still uncalculated damage throughout Louisville, Ky., and originally left up to 300,000 customers without power.
“We were fortunate, because there was damage to parts of the neighborhood around us,” Asher said. “We had a few limbs down, but that was about it.”
Asher said a merchandise tent located near Gate 1 was blown away. Part of the Churchill Downs campus never lost power, including corporate office areas and simulcast centers, among other areas. Asher said about 800 simulcast customers were at the track Sept. 14 during the storm, which registered wind gusts of 70-plus miles per hour in Louisville.
Power has been restored to about 85,000 customers as of the morning of Sept. 15, but more than 5,000 power lines are in still need of repair, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.