Ike: Blackout!

[Miss Mary]

As many residents of the US were aware of the devastating results from Hurricane Ike (our hearts just go out to all of you.....), little did we in the Mid-west or in my particular city, Cincinnati/OH, think that we would experience tropical storm winds, sustained for hours, on Sunday, Sept. 14! Our power went out on Sunday at 3:30 p.m., and it was out for 19 hours. Some residents will not receive power for a week. In the Cincinnati area alone, Duke Energy has 800,000 customers. At one time, 90% of its customers did not have power on Sunday and into Monday. Schools and businesses closed yesterday - city-wide. Tri-state wide (SW Ohio, SE Indiana, N Kentucky) as well. By this morning, most school districts were closed again for the second day. Duke still hadn't restored power to over 500,000 customers.

Again, our hearts in this region go out to our neighbors down south and we know it could have been a lot worse up here. It could be winter or the heat of the summer. As it stands, as you look out any window in Cincinnati, the weather is picture perfect. But all over this area trees are down, homes and businesses damaged or had caught fire, 5 people have lost their lives from this high wind event.

It's just the wildest Cincinnati weather I've ever experienced. I'm able to log on again but for 19 hours we grilled out, relied upon a battery operated Wx/TV/Radio and our Sony Watchman (which my husband kept reminding me will be obsolete next Feb.!).......

Not to take away from devastating wx reports from TX and LA, we here in the Ohio Valley thought we'd have a ~few~ strong wind gusts from what was once Hurricane Ike. Not sustained tropical storm wind gusts, for hours and clocked as high as 84 MPH!

For the latest, here are a few links....
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... egory=NEWS
http://www.wlwt.com/index.html
http://www.wcpo.com/Default.aspx

Just glad to be back. When you suddenly cannot log on, receive phone calls, etc. you are cut off from the world. Looters could have gone crazy in my city but thankfully I haven't heard of many looting reports. This wind event just seemed to converge over our town and take many, if not all by surprise!

Mary

[therock1811]

I woke up at 2pm in Florence to power already beginning to flicker. The winds were 30 miles per hour and quickly picking up. At this point, I got out of bed, which my bed is an air mattress that runs off the outlet near my bed, and got dressed. I went to the living room where power was still flickering (keeping my family from watching the Cincinnati Bengals game, but that's another story).

Now my best friend from my high school days had just had a baby late Saturday evening. I had promised to be at the hospital first thing after I woke up. By this time, winds had picked up to 35 gusting to 50. I still went ahead with my trip, knowing that there was as good a chance as not that I would not be home anytime soon once I got out there.

I proceeded east on State Highway 18. Winds were so strong as to push my wheelchair along down the street and keep me moving so that I reached the hospital in short order. I called my parents back home and thats when our power here went out. It would be out for the next 10 and a half hours.

After visiting with Krista and her baby, I decided to try and make the return trip. That was hell. I made it about halfway on my own, and at that point had to have someone drive me the rest of the way because I was getting nowhere walking into the wind.

When the car I was riding in pulled into my home street...it was almost unrecognizable.Tree limbs were still flying...power lines down at the end of the street, entire trees snapped above ground. I got home, then me and my parents went to Newport, KY for the evening. Well...when we got out of the comedy show we'd gone to see, we decided to try and get something to eat at LaRosa's in Newport. That didn't happen...Newport had been hit hard too, everything south of 10th street in that town was without power, nothing was open. Parts of Covington, Crestview Hills, and Erlanger, KY all had power but others did not. As I said, we had no power at my home from 3pm Sunday to 1:30pm Monday. 425,000 still don't have power at this time per Duke Energy and our CBS affiliate, WKRC. This was something none of us in our area are used to, and certainly don't normally experience in fall...there usually is one wind event in the fall with the first strong cold front...but nothing like this.

[Miss Mary]

Wow Jeremy - what an ordeal - you were really out in the thick of it! I can only imagine you couldn't get far.....it seems everyone you talk to right now, has their own story, not quite like your (or mine) own but a story, nonetheless. My next door neighbor with 3 children, lost a lot of food after their summer vacation (came home to find the fridge/freezer on the blink). They bought a new one and over 4 weeks had been stocking it up again. Well, they lost it all - again! She estimated close to $500 worth. She must really stock up. We've been so busy lately that my chilled or frozen items were low. So I gave my fridge a thorough cleaning, on Sunday morning! When the winds picked up I was Krogering. Then the power went out. I looked at the measly few items I had in the cart and called it a grocery shop. Good thing! As we were w/o for 19 hours. I heard of one lady who lost over $200 in food, got power back on, went shopping today, spent $250 and it went out again!

I am not stocking up my chilled or frozen items for a while. I'm putting provisions into canned items (tuna, soup), crackers, bottled water, etc.

We made rice on the grill's burner during the blackout!

I did buy a sterno burner/stand/cooking pot a few winters ago. I was about to get it out but then remembered we had the grill burner.

It's just a good thing it's not winter! Or we are having a heat wave, like last year! Can you imagine?

And now there's a water main break on I 71, the highway is shut down because it is sinking! Sinking!!!! OMG.....

[therock1811]

Oh yes Mary...I would move a couple feet, big gust would come and I'd be right back where I started. I got nowhere fast...literally!

[Stephanie]

The poor Midwest has been pummeled this year with record breaking rains almost all year long. Ike was adding insult to injury. It was an amazing storm.

[therock1811]

The poor Midwest has been pummeled this year with record breaking rains almost all year long. Ike was adding insult to injury. It was an amazing storm.

North of us, yes. Nothing here at ALL with Ike...

[Miss Mary]

Stephanie - it sure was! People my age or older have been saying over and over, we've never seen such widespread damage and ongoing outages (stations out of gas, no power, stores out of ice/food, restaurants closing because their food went bad) like this before. In the past usually we've known tornado's could form, the potential was there, etc. Also with snowstorms. The only snowstorm that caught many off guard was the Blizzard of 1978 -but it also took local Mets by surprise too.

But this wind storm, was a major shock!

We still have schools that are closing for Wednesday. Our city's main district - Cincinnati Public Schools - are closed for the third day in a row, and that's a huge district that is VERY reluctant to close, if ever. It is BIG news when you hear that district is closing......and now many other outlying large districts are closing, again. Many have no food to serve for lunch. At first I think as a mother would do - I would just pack my kids' lunches. But my manager explained that schools are obligated by law to provide hot meals for free and/or reduced lunch students. So it's a touchy issue - do you remain closed because of this? Also, our middle school has automatic flushing toilets, so if power is spotty again tomorrow, that would be a health hazard. I can just see middle schooler's not flushing......

Well, anyway our woes are nothing like what they're facing in TX, I am just now able to see the devastating pics and read personal survival stories from the damage from Ike. I've only had online access for about 6 hours now. It's hard to catch up. Gonna take me a few days....

[therock1811]

Stephanie - it sure was! People my age or older have been saying over and over, we've never seen such widespread damage and ongoing outages (stations out of gas, no power, stores out of ice/food, restaurants closing because their food went bad) like this before. In the past usually we've known tornado's could form, the potential was there, etc. Also with snowstorms. The only snowstorm that caught many off guard was the Blizzard of 1978 -but it also took local Mets by surprise too.

But this wind storm, was a major shock!

We still have schools that are closing for Wednesday. Our city's main district - Cincinnati Public Schools - are closed for the third day in a row, and that's a huge district that is VERY reluctant to close, if ever. It is BIG news when you hear that district is closing......and now many other outlying large districts are closing, again. Many have no food to serve for lunch. At first I think as a mother would do - I would just pack my kids' lunches. But my manager explained that schools are obligated by law to provide hot meals for free and/or reduced lunch students. So it's a touchy issue - do you remain closed because of this? Also, our middle school has automatic flushing toilets, so if power is spotty again tomorrow, that would be a health hazard. I can just see middle schooler's not flushing......

Well, anyway our woes are nothing like what they're facing in TX, I am just now able to see the devastating pics and read personal survival stories from the damage from Ike. I've only had online access for about 6 hours now. It's hard to catch up. Gonna take me a few days....

They're concerned about the food because refrigerated stuff only survives up to 6 hours. And of course the schools have to have milk to give the students. It's not the schools being without power in some cases, it's that they don't have food and the deliveries have not yet come. Frozen foods likely survived unless the power was still out this morning, in which case that too had to be thrown out.

[Miss Mary]

Even though all these schools are off tomorrow, I report to work - all 9 of our schools are in session. It will be an interesting day. In hindsight I shouldn't have stayed up this late but somehow we'll all manage. It's going to be a very busy day!

[therock1811]

Even though all these schools are off tomorrow, I report to work - all 9 of our schools are in session. It will be an interesting day. In hindsight I shouldn't have stayed up this late but somehow we'll all manage. It's going to be a very busy day!

Boone Co. schools are in tomorrow, too.

[Ed Mahmoud]

I hope my power is on by Saturday. Absolutely no later than Sunday for the Cowboys vs Packers game.

[Miss Mary]

I have to make one comment about local media coverage of this Ohio/wind storm event and it could be indicative to other regions.

As I sat in the dark with both my Sony Watchman and the Sony TV/Radio/WX, both battery operated, local on air radio DJ's/talk show hosts or news casters would begin to rattle off info listeners really needed to hear - where to call to report outages, where to call for large limb removal, where to call for damage, or in some cases 911 was out of service and you had to call a different # for true medical emergencies.......these professionals would add these words, are you ready?:

All of this info can be found on our website.

ON THEIR WEBSITE!

Then one of them would have the light bulb come on, sometimes, sometimes not - and that bright individual would say - well for some of our (90% of Cincinnatians at the time, over 500,000 people, close to 1 million if you counted surrounding Cincinnati counties/townships) residents, they don't have electricity so they can't log onto their computers.

It was very frustrating to hear these professionals start to give vital info, then stop, because it was found on their website.

Very few in this town could log onto computers at the time.

That's my gripe. If I were in charge of these radio/TV stations, I would suggest my employees give all of this info, even if tediously, over and over again.

Okay, I'm done.....thanks for reading!

Sometimes you get the feeling the answer is so obvious, but no one is home! LOL This is when common sense should be the rule of the day and not IQ's.....he he

Mary

[bvigal]

I have to make one comment about local media coverage of this Ohio/wind storm event and it could be indicative to other regions.

As I sat in the dark with both my Sony Watchman and the Sony TV/Radio/WX, both battery operated, local on air radio DJ's/talk show hosts or news casters would begin to rattle off info listeners really needed to hear - where to call to report outages, where to call for large limb removal, where to call for damage, or in some cases 911 was out of service and you had to call a different # for true medical emergencies.......these professionals would add these words, are you ready?:

All of this info can be found on our website.

ON THEIR WEBSITE!

Then one of them would have the light bulb come on, sometimes, sometimes not - and that bright individual would say - well for some of our (90% of Cincinnatians at the time, over 500,000 people, close to 1 million if you counted surrounding Cincinnati counties/townships) residents, they don't have electricity so they can't log onto their computers.

It was very frustrating to hear these professionals start to give vital info, then stop, because it was found on their website.

Very few in this town could log onto computers at the time.

That's my gripe. If I were in charge of these radio/TV stations, I would suggest my employees give all of this info, even if tediously, over and over again.

Okay, I'm done.....thanks for reading!

Sometimes you get the feeling the answer is so obvious, but no one is home! LOL This is when common sense should be the rule of the day and not IQ's.....he he

Mary

Miss Mary, you have highlighted a major problem, lack of common sense! It is epidemic!! I'm always amazed at computer companies, and software companies - especially antivirus software, whose tech support is ONLY reachable via the internet. My computer is hung, how am I supposed to use the internet or send an email??? Doesn't anyone use phones these days? No, that would make sense!

[Miss Mary]

Yup! Also try to find a pay phone. They're just about obsolete now......when my daughter went off to her Fall Internship job, we were still w/o power so I suggested she take her cell phone charger and charge at work. She gave me that look - as if to say, what a good idea! But our power was on when she got home anyway....but what if it hadn't? My husband can charge his cell phone in his car. He bought the charger to do this. I think I might buy my daughter one for her car.......anyway, you almost have to think ahead, prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

Well, this is a tropical wx board and everyone has survival stories to tell but this is my one gripe - these TV and radio professionals should be pre-empting local programming and giving out vital info and reading the numbers outloud too! Sometimes they'd put the screen up and say - here's the # you should call......but not say it outloud (I love my radio that you can hear TV channels on, it comes in handy, the audio is better than the Sony Watchman, which to be honest, is a dinky screen for these tired, 40+ year old eyes!)

Do you know that when this severe wind storm started our go-to local AM radio station aired the Cincinnati Reds game! The station manager regrets that decision now, he admits he should have pulled the game and went to live up to the second reports. They had hundreds of callers, calling in with vital info (roads blocked, etc.). But the Reds game went on as planned.

Sigh......

[Miss Mary]

Hey one more rant! Forgive me....

There are people in Cincinnati w/o power, 4 days after the storm. Today will mark their 5th day. Part of the trouble is these are older neighborhoods with above ground electric lines. If the line to their house was pulled down, the elec. company can install it again but not the electric box cover, that actually goes to their house? A private contractor has to do that work. They have to hire a company to come out and do this service. So while one neighbor may have power, across the street they sit in the dark.

Okay, that's not my rant but an update. Oops - sorry!

My rant - some residents have been quoted in the paper as starving, with nothing to eat since they lost all their food in the fridge and freezer.

Starving?

Do not they not know about room temperature pantry items?

What this event has taught me to is to keep my pantry stocked. Forget that freezer! I think some of these people must rely upon a lot of meat and frozen meals. We don't (we are more than half way there to being vegetarians).

I will be keeping dry and canned items on hand from now on. More than I ever did before! Soup, tuna, beans, rice, crackers, for some peanut butter (we have an allergy in the family so we use soynut butter), etc.

Room temp folks - that's the key here!

You should see my freezer - it's 90% bare. I am not interested in stocking it yet. I'm waiting. There are still power lines coming down in my area!

[vbhoutex]

Never thought our friends up North would need hurricane kits!!! That is just what you are describing. Of course, don't forget the batteries!!! Obviously, these"hurricane" kits would work well as blizzard kits too. Do our friends in the northern climes keep blizzard kits stocked during the winter months?

[Miss Mary]

No not necessarily David. People do seem to stock up on groceries (canned goods, milk, diapers, formula etc.) and keep their gas tanks full. You don't want to be sitting in hours of traffic in a snowstorm with a nearly empty gas tank. These are the things people do up here. Power has gone out in snowstorms but not always. If you were to ask people in the Mid-west they would say groceries, gas, snow shovels, salt to melt ice and possibly batteries are how they prepare for blizzards. And oh, wood if they have a wood burning fireplace.

Now you have me longing for Winter!

I'm serving a dish tonight you make with chicken. And did I trust the fresh chicken in the grocery store? Not on your life! I went with Swanson canned chicken......LOL

Hey it won't be anything fancy but at least I know that chicken in the can is good and not spoiled food!

[Miss Mary]

You all won't believe this - power is out again at the middle school I work at. Our supervisor and my manager, food service employees like I am, have been moving frozen and refrigerated items to trucks all evening, to be taken to the other 8 schools in our district who have power. This time they must have had custodians on duty to alert them so food didn't spoil. Kids are probably happy - they had 3 days off this week.

I report to work at 7 am.

All over our town, power outages keep popping up - traffic lights at major intersections go out, trees topple, bringing more power line down.

What a week it's been for this area.

[Ptarmigan]

My condolences to you people in the Midwest. Hurricane Ike really ravaged America including the Midwest. I feel your pain because I went through it in as a hurricane. Horrible is all I can say. There is really no words to even describe it.

[Miss Mary]

Thank you. We all know it could be much worse so we are counting our blessings up here. I guess the main surprise in all of this is how long it's taken for many to have power restored. There are several pockets of subdivisions in my area that are w/o, we're going into day 6 now. And I think they have underground power lines! So I don't understand all of this......also power goes out again. Just when you think you're set, it's out again.

Our cable and phone was out again yesterday.

I have no idea what we'll have for dinner. I just don't trust any of the meat in these stores! I think we'll just have spaghetti!