Ike's remnants hit Ohio...over 2 million without power...

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namkcuR

ONE love, blood, life
Joined
Sep 7, 2004
Messages
10,770
Location
Kettering, Ohio
This is the first time anything like this has ever happened in Ohio. Usually a hurricane's remnants are non-existent or nearly non-existent by the time they get this far north. But I guess Ike was big enough. Its remnants coming from the south collided with a cool-front coming in from the north, on Sunday, a beautiful, sunny day - so the sun only heated up the sky and air. What resulted was what some are calling a 'wind storm', what some are calling a 'category 1 hurricane'. A dry hurricane if you will. There was some light rain but not a lot at all. It was the wind. We had 70-80mph gusts from 1PM to 6PM on Sunday afternoon. You could hear the howling. All with the sun out.

The result: Tree branches, whole trees, down everywhere you go - luckily none of our trees were damaged. Power lines down all over the place - 300,000 without power in our region, over 2,000,000 in the whole state. Most(but not all) traffic lights were out. We haven't had electricity since 2PM Sunday afternoon(don't know if you noticed I haven't posted here since Sunday morning - this is why). We don't know if it's going to come back today, tomorrow, or later in the week/weekend. DP&L(our electricity provider) says this is the biggest, most wide-spread power-outage problem they've seen in 35 years, maybe ever in Ohio.

We've been living by candlelight after 8PM on Sunday and last night, and will do again tonight(I don't think we're getting power back today). Stuff is going bad in the fridge. I started doing a jigsaw puzzle yesterday to pass the time. There's nothing to do when it gets dark - you can't even read or anything. Just putting together small meals is difficult. The stove has to be lit with a match, the microwave isn't usable at all, etc.

So, I'm on my college campus right now(one of the few schools around that didn't close due to no power), with my laptop(which I'm typing on), IPod, and phone plugged in the wall charging(computer has been dead and IPod has been almost dead since Sunday night(because I used them, there was nothing else to do), and my phone has been dead since last night. All I could do last night was listen via a battery-powered radio to a local radio station's emergency coverage of the aftermath.

This is one of the more unique situations I've ever been in. And it's probably child's play compared to what they're dealing with in Galveston and Houston right now.

I didn't see anything about this posted anywhere here, so I thought I'd post about it. I don't think we have too many other Ohioans here...though I think Indra is from Ohio, maybe Utoo(not sure about that)...can't think of anymore right now.

Depending on when our power comes back, I may not post again until I'm on campus again on Thursday.
 
Well, there's always reading by candlelight...I did some of that post-hurricane as a kid.

There were lots of power outages from wind damage here in Indiana too, as well as floods--a few towns had to be evacuated, several counties still have boil-water orders out, and 7 people died either from floods or falling tree limbs. Still, it's nowhere near as bad as Ohio; I think 2+ million is something like 7 times more outages than we had here.

Glad to hear you're safe.
 
:ohmy:

Stay safe :hug: And if you have a car, perhaps you could buy a charger for your phone & ipod (for future needs, I suppose). And extra batteries as well, for flashlights & such. And candles. Okay, enough of me rambling about the obvious...
 
My brother lives in Houston and has been without power since Friday. They luckily have gas stove and water heater so they can at least cook and shower, and then a cool front came in Sunday evening so it hasn't been completely unbearable. But other than one day of clean up it's been a lot of cook whatever they have before it goes bad and drinking, so it's been one big block party...
 
Yep, I'm in Ohio (Columbus). Just got my power back on about four hours ago. The wind was amazing! I was outside on my porch with a customer (I sell artwork for a friend) for much of it and it was fantastic to see and hear. I've never been in a hurricane (I'm very happy for that), but it was quite a thrill to be able to experience hurricane force winds (even if they were relatively mild for a hurricane). And having the sun out during the whole thing was wild -- I kept expecting a storm, but it never came.

The power outage wasn't all that bad for me. I'm used to living in mostly or all electric houses with septic systems and well or cistern water (which use electric pumps). But now I live in a house with city sewer and water and have a gas stove and gas water heater. So unlike the past times I've been through long power outages I had a toilet that flushed, running water (both cold and hot) and a usable stove. We bought ice and packed perishables in coolers, so I didn't lose much there (what I did lose was mostly stuff that should have been tossed anyway). Makes this power outage thing a piece of cake, especially since we didn't have to deal with actual hurricane conditions (the weather has been gorgeous the past few days) or massive damage. Plus I had loads of candles and batteries and a standard corded landline phone (and a cell phone), so although evenings were quiet and dark they were really kind of nice too. I did miss being able to get online, but not as much as I expected to -- knowing a whole lot of other people are much worse off made it much easier.

And I talked to many of my neighbors for the first time ever.

Overall not a bad few days.

Oh, I did get a storm injury. In between gusts, I was out picking up pears knocked off the trees when another gust hit. I was just scurrying away from the tree when a fence post that was leaning against the deck blew over and hit me on back of my calf. So I have a nifty bruise and a seven to eight inch long and two inch wide scrape on the back of my leg. That will teach me not to go outside in that kind of wind again. The pears are pretty damned tasty though. :D
 
I'm in Dayton and luckily we didn't lose our power in my 'hood (lost lots of trees, roof shingles, and fences here, tho), but the 'hood on the other side of the cemetery didn't have power for days. My sister, who lives in Columbus, has been without power since Sunday afternoon and has been told that she *might* get it back Sunday or Monday! She had to find a neighbor with a generator-powered fridge so she could store the 1/4 share of a cow she just bought. And, as my sister had JUST moved into her house, she had 2 months' worth of groceries (they do BIG shopping trips every other month) that are now goo.

Restaurants around here are packed at lunch time each day. I've been out at 12:30 the past two days, and every fast food place has a completely packed parking lot and a drive-thru line to the street--I'm guessing no one had food at home to take for lunch. There's no ice to be had, from what I hear. And the local welfare organization is giving out replacement food stamps for people who have had to throw out all of their food.

But it's NOTHING like in Texas. I feel bad for the people in Galveston and other towns near there. They don't even have houses to go back to!
 
On campus again.

We got our power back at about 4PM yesterday. Unfortunately, cable lines were also knocked down, so although we have power, we don't have internet our cable tv back yet. Our provider, Time Warner, says all of its people are helping the electricity companies fix all the power lines, and that they won't get to fixing the cable lines until the power lines are done. Or something like that. I didn't actually hear TW's recorded message, my dad relayed it to me.
 
I'm in cincinnati oh. we finally got our power back Wed. afternoon...there are still MANY people who do not have electricity back...It was the strangest thing..the wind was absolutely crazy...we had a huge tree snap in our yard and hit our roof...with minimal damge thank God...we had to toss everything in fridge..but mostly I am thankful to get hot water again!!...this reminded me again how much I do not care for camping:mad:
 
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